Cowboy Spur Maker The Story of Ed Blanchard

9781585441747

1585441740

Ed Blanchard was known to family and friends as a wild, reckless cowboy long before horsemen of the West recognized him as a noted maker of cowboy spurs. But it was his years spent herding snorty cattle and cinching his saddle on broncs that taught him his trade as both a cowboy and a spur maker.Jane Pattie has researched the times and added historical background, and she has drawn on interviews she did with Blanchard for her earlier book, Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers. But it is from New Mexico rancher Tom Kelly, Blanchard's cousin, that she uncovered Blanchard's work in the cattle business and how he learned the art of hammering hot steel into the shape of spurs to fit a cowboy's boots.Together, Pattie and Kelly tell a dual tale of old times and of change: the story of spur making as experienced by one of its more prolific practitioners and the story of cowboys in the early part of the twentieth century. Through Blanchard's experiences, the authors trace the changes of Western life, from horse to pickup truck, from hand-forged spurs to commercial manufacture. Ranch life, the cowboy life, and metalworking in the American West are interwoven through the book, as they were in the real life of Blanchard, who emerges from these pages as a humorous, down-home regional character readers will be glad to get to know.