This is National Day of the Cowboy, honoring the ranching icon born out of the Civil War era.
As the country grew, the beef industry did, too, and the cowboys moved west bringing livestock to market.
Longtime Benson rancher and cowboy poet Baxter Black says you may not see as many cowboys these days, but, they’re still out there. He’s even written a poem about it.
“They call ‘em a vanishing breed… they write books and take pictures and talk like they’re all dying out… like dinosaurs going to seed… but, that’s my friends you’re talking about…some say they’re endangered species, destined to fade into footnotes, like ropes that never get throw'd … to that I reply, ‘Bull feces!’ They’re just hard to see from the road," he wrote.
