What Knives Did Cowboy's Carry?

[Vlade]

Cowboys of the old west often carried a push dagger. The push dagger was invented around 1820 in the deep south USA. They were used by riverboat gamblers and cowboys of the Old West. The reason being was derringers were not reliable at the time. So folks needed something to rely on for self-defense and that's what they invented I believe it was in Louisiana. They used to hide them in their boots and hide them in their sleeves of their shirts. However crimes with these push daggers got out of control in 1890 due to murders and fights and riots with these weapons. New Orleans outlawed them that year. I wasn't around then LOL but that's what I read.

 

[Slice-and-dice]

What about us City Cowboys?? Thanks for asking. We most often carry a Buck 112!

 

[Vlade]

What about us City Cowboys?? Thanks for asking. We most often carry a Buck 112!




View attachment 2407295

Any good City cowboy worth his salt obviously would carry an automatic stiletto.

 

[Will Power]

Yes, very likely what they could get hold of as they were travelling through places: simple fixed blade, sturdy folding knife, probably a hatchet too. Reliable boots and functional tackle.

As the Cowboy is an American icon and uniquely N.American it's vital to remember that much of the mythology around Cowboys, Frontier has been promoted and fashioned by Hollywood and other media to an International audience, often credulous one. Leaving aside whether or not we enjoy the Western film genre and its heroes, figures in 'classic' Westerns such as John Wayne et al. likely bore scant physical (and or moral) resemblance to actual Cowboys from say 1850-1890. The closely shaved Gillette look, clean clothes, pristine quality guns & horses etc are shall we say rather 'unreal' Photographic evidence can show us that Cowboys were also Latins, Native Americans, freed Blacks, recent immigrants, many were unkempt, bearded and their equipment likely simple and functional - unsurprisingly. Better off ranchers, owners or lawyers would likely been keen to splash out on fancy garb, expensive guns, horses, tackle and prominent knives, posed in photos but not likely typical.

I think that Leslie Tomville pictures from the wreck of the Steamboat 'Arabia' are key for understanding the type of knife favoured at that time by full-time outdoorsmen. Often a quite large single blade, Clasp type knife without much ornament but reliable quality and affordable. Would be nice to visit the museum to examine for tang stamps- probably a fair number are imports from England or Germany, the domestic cutlers still in their shadow, but not for long. I understand the museum also has household goods, clothing remnants, tools & firearms recovered from the silt in remarkable condition. A fascinating 'window' to their contemporary world.

As for CASE Sodbusters, well they did not appear till the 1960s..... and are inspired by the wooden handled French & German work-knives that might well have been used by a Cowboy ! Or not. I think it a good point that fixed knives were likely carried in a saddlebag to avoid injury or death to horse and/or rider in the event of a fall- common occurence.

 

[Boattale]

What about us City Cowboys?? Thanks for asking. We most often carry a Buck 112!




View attachment 2407295

By city cowboy I presume you mean all hat and no cattle? I think they have a gas station folder.

 

[Slice-and-dice]

By city cowboy I presume you mean all hat and no cattle? I think they have a gas station folder.

You nailed it! LOL

 

[dsutton24]

Cowboys in the American Old West used a variety of knives for different purposes, including cutting things, scraping things, cutting and scraping things, and various nefarious activities.

The first category, cutting things, is perhaps the largest. Articles that needed to be cut included rabbits, cows, cowboys, cownongendereclusive, sheep, bats, rats, stoats, goats, snakes, stakes, rakes, brakes, hakes, walnuts and certain kinds of very small rocks. The cutting edge of the Cowboy Knife in the American Old West was often a secondary consideration, the more important consideration being that you actually have a knife in the first place. Having a knife implies having a cutting edge, so the point is moot. That is ironic in itself because a moot point is not an effective cutting point. The more traditional choices would be the spear point, the clip point, or the broken point.

Scraping things, not to be confused with scrapping things, is another purpose for which Cowboy Knives in the American Old West were commonly used. It seems that most Cowboys in the American Old West didn't EDC purpose-built scrapers. Often a Cowboy knife of the American Old West would do double duty as a scraper. Rocks were often used as scrapers, of course, but most Cowboys of the American Old West declined to EDC rocks, as they were generally and widely available, and the cost of rocks that were suitable for scraping was so low that they'd often be acquired as the need arose. Rocks could also do double duty whacking things, but this rock use is not well documented ^{Citation Needed}.

Often the above categories would overlap. For example, when a Cowboy of the American Old West was preparing his avocado toast, often toast toasted over a campfire would need to be scraped, as cooking over a campfire could be a variable process. The toast, being successfully scraped, would then be spread with Irish butter, and set aside to keep warm. The avocado was then split open, the pit removed from one half using any of several knife manipulations, and the pulp removed from the skin using an avocado knife. Thin slices of avocado are then fanned over the warm, buttered bread. The toast could then be drizzled with olive oil, if desired, and sprinkled with herbs of Cowboys in the American Old West's choice. The avocado toast was often paired with a cup of Twinings English Breakfast tea.

The last category, various nefarious activities, is, perhaps the most interesting category. One famous example one famous Cowboy of the American Old West, Parysatis, the mother of Persian King Artaxerxes II (1844 - 1893), did not get along with her daughter-in-law Stateira. Jealous of Stateira's
advances toward her son, Parysatis smeared the poison from the Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum) on one side of her knife and then cut into a roasted prairie chicken. Stateira, having eaten the poisoned half of the bird, succumbed from the poison. This was the first recorded use of the phrase, "Et tu, Parysatis?"

For further information on What knives did Cowboys in the American Old West use see the article They Probably Used Whatever Was Available.

 

[JM2]

Thanks for all the replies, some serious, some humorous.

Okay, I use the term cowboy loosely. I meant the normal non-city folks west of the Mississippi river, in the period from the end of the civil war until the time Elmer Keith was borned. In other words, I meant generally, what knives did folks use back then?

 

[JM2]

Very nice information here.

Not much into cowboys, but I want to add one point and that is, especially in the early days in northern america there was not so much of an own cutlery industry, a lot of imports from the european market like england, germany, france.
Adding to that a lot of settlers brought and used the knifes from home, as proven by various archeological finds.

So at least in the early days exspect a lot of simple european knives in those peoples pockets.

Good read on that topic, not regarding cowboys but I think there is a lot of overlap here.

That's cool, thanks for sharing. I lost a copy of that book when my house burnt. I'd read a bit in it, but hadn't read it through yet. I'd like to find another copy sometime.

 

[JM2]

View attachment 2407030View attachment 2407032View attachment 2407033View attachment 2407034

@Arathol is correct in all that he says. The Steamship Arabia sunk in the Missouri River in 1853. It was headed west and loaded with all sorts of goods intended to be sold to western settlers. I believe the knives recovered from the Arabia, some of which are shown in these photographs, are probably representative of the types of knives used by all westerners of that general era. You can see lots of different patterns, many of which are the same or very similar to knives we still use today. I can see some incredible Stag and many different blade types and configurations. There is also scratted bone and lots of beautiful wood. The vessel carried scores of Green River type fixed blades most
commonly used by early fur trappers, people I would call Frontiersmen or Mountain Men. They were not cowboys, but trappers and traders. Lots of people confuse them with cowboys, but they had different needs for their knives. The sheer number of knives recovered indicate just how important they were to these people.

I believe that most people’s notion of a cowboy relates to the period of the great cattle drives after the civil war. I would bet those cowboys were still
using the same type of knives shown here. Cowboys have continued to exist since then until
today, and they still use similar knives.

The Texas and Oklahoma cowboys which I am
familiar with seemed to prefer slipjoints, usually trappers with a clip and spey or stockmen, for many years. Recently, many have switched to modern one hand opening knives that lock simply because they are so handy to use while working. Many prefer not to ride with fixed blades, because the force of falling from a horse could easily push a fixed blade through a scabbard. That could be bad for horse and rider!

(Although I must say that we still
use and enjoy beautiful fixed blades like the ones you make Dave, Horsewright , just not while horseback! After all, as the old saying goes, you are not a cowboy until you fall
off three times!)

Cowboys/Vaqueros further west have their own traditions which I am not very familiar with.

Thank you for sharing. Thats interesting. Looks like some half congresses in there.

 

[GaiusJulius]

Cowboys in the American Old West used a variety of knives for different purposes, including cutting things, scraping things, cutting and scraping things, and various nefarious activities.

The first category, cutting things, is perhaps the largest. Articles that needed to be cut included rabbits, cows, cowboys, cownongendereclusive, sheep, bats, rats, stoats, goats, snakes, stakes, rakes, brakes, hakes, walnuts and certain kinds of very small rocks. The cutting edge of the Cowboy Knife in the American Old West was often a secondary consideration, the more important consideration being that you actually have a knife in the first place. Having a knife implies having a cutting edge, so the point is moot. That is ironic in itself because a moot point is not an effective cutting point. The more traditional choices would be the spear point, the clip point, or the broken point.

Scraping things, not to be confused with scrapping things, is another purpose for which Cowboy Knives in the American Old West were commonly used. It seems that most Cowboys in the American Old West didn't EDC purpose-built scrapers. Often a Cowboy knife of the American Old West would do double duty as a scraper. Rocks were often used as scrapers, of course, but most Cowboys of the American Old West declined to EDC rocks, as they were generally and widely available, and the cost of rocks that were suitable for scraping was so low that they'd often be acquired as the need arose. Rocks could also do double duty whacking things, but this rock use is not well documented ^{Citation Needed}.

Often the above categories would overlap. For example, when a Cowboy of the American Old West was preparing his avocado toast, often toast toasted over a campfire would need to be scraped, as cooking over a campfire could be a variable process. The toast, being successfully scraped, would then be spread with Irish butter, and set aside to keep warm. The avocado was then split open, the pit removed from one half using any of several knife manipulations, and the pulp removed from the skin using an avocado knife. Thin slices of avocado are then fanned over the warm, buttered bread. The toast could then be drizzled with olive oil, if desired, and sprinkled with herbs of Cowboys in the American Old West's choice. The avocado toast was often paired with a cup of Twinings English Breakfast tea.

The last category, various nefarious activities, is, perhaps the most interesting category. One famous example one famous Cowboy of the American Old West, Parysatis, the mother of Persian King Artaxerxes II (1844 - 1893), did not get along with her daughter-in-law Stateira. Jealous of Stateira's
advances toward her son, Parysatis smeared the poison from the Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum) on one side of her knife and then cut into a roasted prairie chicken. Stateira, having eaten the poisoned half of the bird, succumbed from the poison. This was the first recorded use of the phrase, "Et tu, Parysatis?"

For further information on What knives did Cowboys in the American Old West use see the article They Probably Used Whatever Was Available.

I needed that tonight, thank you!

 

[osoverride]

Wow.....is ChatGTP among us still?
Queen, Schrade and Buck did not exist until the 20th century. Case was in the last few years of the 19th century just the Case brothers selling knives from a wagon in western New York, not to be confused with the Western Frontier....

Busted


I didn't know the answer and so I asked ChatGPT and shared the response here. I have a lot of curiosity with AI text bots. I spent a significant amount of time during my graduate program pestering it with first order logic and other philosophical questions. The responses consistently seemed to me as inaccurate and lacking depth, but it typically got a lot of the basic stuff right (not with logic but with more normative questions). Since I didn't know the answer to the question here, I wanted to conduct a little experiment to see how inaccurate it was. So I posted it thinking people would shred it. They did. What I didn't expect was for so many of you to immediately recognize that the response was AI generated! What gave it away?

 

[Just Tom.]

Busted


I didn't know the answer and so I asked ChatGPT and shared the response here. I have a lot of curiosity with AI text bots. I spent a significant amount of time during my graduate program pestering it with first order logic and other philosophical questions. The responses consistently seemed to me as inaccurate and lacking depth, but it typically got a lot of the basic stuff right (not with logic but with more normative questions). Since I didn't know the answer to the question here, I wanted to conduct a little experiment to see how inaccurate it was. So I posted it thinking people would shred it. They did. What I didn't expect was for so many of you to immediately recognize that the response was AI generated! What gave it away?

I know nothing of AI, but the authoritative tone combined with the glaring inaccuracies had me scratching my head for sure. It read like a bad homework assignment.

Is there an AI that teachers or others can use to detect AI?

Maybe we should just abandon the internet to AI responses to AI content, and us humans can all go fishing or something instead.

 

[RLB0414]

Define "cowboy", and how far after the civil war? What a frontiersman crossing the plains would carry would be completely different from what a working cattleman would carry. Just different jobs, need different knives. Same with driving a trail herd up to Montana as opposed to working at a ranch. Different needs would require different knives. Still does. What I carried when I would lead a pack string into the mountains was different from what I carried as a rancher working on my ranch. By the way accepted definitions today: a Cowboy works for wages for the Rancher. So I'm not a Cowboy per se, (although have been in the past), I'm a Rancher as I owned the cattle. Well did, recently retired last month. My son is a "working" cowboy. He works for wages on a variety of different ranches, throughout California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. The thought that there was a cowboy era or time is not really so. There is still a very vibrant and active cowboy culture all over including Europe, Australia, Canada, South America etc. Sometimes they might go by other names but there ya are. Most of the time ya just can't see us from the road:

Dave, congratulations. Seems to me it would be very tough to just stop that lifestyle. A hard but rewarding lifestyle I am sure.
The photo of, I assume, you riding into the sun is great.
Certainly going to miss your working photos. Thank you for sharing those with us.
Guess retiring from ranching lets you spend more time making knives and leather goods.

 

[Vlade]

Do Puerto Rican cowboys count? I live close to a big ranch. I don't know how many acres it is but it's huge. They graze cows on one side sometimes and then they graze them in a different location the next time. I don't know nothing about being a cowboy, but these guys don't use horses. They use Jeeps and four by fours. They blow a horn it sounds like they're using their mouth it's not a mechanical horn I don't think, I guess it scares the cows to go where they want them to go? HorseWright do you use the same technique ? Or have you ever heard of this? Thank you in advance

 

[jackknife]

Do Puerto Rican cowboys count? I live close to a big ranch. I don't know how many acres it is but it's huge. They graze cows on one side sometimes and then they graze them in a different location the next time. I don't know nothing about being a cowboy, but these guys don't use horses. They use Jeeps and four by fours. They blow a horn it sounds like they're using their mouth it's not a mechanical horn I don't think, I guess it scares the cows to go where they want them to go? HorseWright do you use the same technique ? Or have you ever heard of this? Thank you in advance

Well, some of your Puerto Rican cowboys must have emigrated. That's the way I've seen them do it here in Texas. When our granddaughter visits, (she's the horse lover in the family) we go riding at a ranch over in Llano, west of here in Georgetown. It seems every time we're there, most the ranch work is being done from the back of a Honda ATV. Same we've seen in other places in Texas, moving cattle seems to involve ATV's.

At least if an ATV gets a flat, you don't have to shoot it. And if you're not using it, you don't have to feed it.

As far as knives go, I think the photos from the steamship wreck speaks volumes. Lots of largish single blade sheep foot knives with a smattering of half congress patterns.

One other source seems mentioning. I had a copy of Harold Petersons book "American Knives" now out of print. I gifted it off to another blade forums traditional member. But I recall the chapter on folding/pocket knives. Going by factory shipping records and sales records of old stores, the most popular selling pocket knife west of the big Miss, post civil war era, was the Barlow produced by the John Russell's Company of Massachusetts. Simple one blade bone handled pocket knife.

 

[Lesknife]

My grandfather and great grandfather had stockmen knives and jack knives for pocket carry and then when hunting and camping they had butcher knives for using. My dad and uncle’s said they were told that most people back then used whatever they could find in the local store and sometimes was limited inventory but jack knives were very common and very popular. Stockman or cattle knives were also popular if they could be had.

 

[Horsewright]

That bottom photo is something special.

Thank you! Just a quick phone pic as we were riding home one evening. Its the wife in the pic and I drifited back behind her a hair to get the pic.

Great pictures! What knives do you prefer to carry when working with animals?

This is my personal EDC that I carry always including horseback. its one of my Mestano models. I carry it in a Horizontal crossdraw sheath.

The wife carries a Vaquero model in a pancake sheath behind her left hip

Our daughter carries a Vaquero model too.

I agree with my friend Leslie Tomville that many cowboys carry a folder such as a trapper. However, I disagree with him that small fixed blades are not carried horseback. What have made my knives so popular in the cowboy world and culture is that not only are my fixed blades ideal for the tasks asked of them but each and every one of my sheath designs are designed first and foremost around carrying that fixed blade safely and with retention. "Unintentional dismounts" are a part of horseback riding, it happens. So 1) how to prevent that knife from going flying if some ruckus occurs whether or not you weather the storm and 2) If indeed things get western and you are the victim of an unintentional dismount, you don't get stuck by your knife even if you land on it. I must have got this down cause I have sold not hundreds not just many hundreds of knives to cowboys and cowboygirls (the in term for a girl like my wife or daughter that can do the job, not just look good in jeans and boots), but I'm into multiple thousands. Even more sheaths cause many folks will send me a knife they already have and like for one of my sheaths.

Why a fixed blade and not that folder? I'll relate a story. I get called often the day after a "wreck." This particular one sticks out in my head cause I've been close to this one myself. Guy was loading a bunch of horses in a stock trailer. It was a cold Montana morning and there was some ice on the floor of the trailer. Suddenly he'w got horses slipping and going down. This is very disconcerting for most horses and they started flailing around. So now he's got five or six horses upside down but they are tied up to the side of the trailer and have him pinned to the wall. He has a folder in his pocket but he's got chaps on and can't get to it in a hurry. And in a hurry is what he needs to do and start cutting lead ropes so that things can get sorted. Oh but he can't cause that folder is in a pocket under his chaps. He called me the next day and ordered two. It happens. When it does happen it happens very quickly and you simply don't have time to leisurely reach into a pocket and open a folder like your picking out a splinter. Too late. When ya have horses, cattle and ropes things can get tangled. Bout to get western:

This big calf was trying to come up my left side. If that were to happen I'd probably being reaching for my knife. Fortunately that day, I was pretty well mounted and was able to get it sorted without cutting my rope. But bad things like that can happen. and sometimes cutting the rope is the quickest safest and really the only way out. for you, a good horse or somebody else. When that horse was young and I was just starting to rope on him it did happen to us. I was reaching for my knife as I was trying to spin the horse to the right to get untangled. See the deal is that rope bout cutting you in tow if the calf gets around and in front of ya on that left side. Sonny, the horse, spun off that left spur bout the time I got my knife out. I have cut other folks out of jams. Where's my knife when riding?

Right there above my left front pocket, where I can get to it with either hand, cause which hand is gonna be tangled? Cowboy girl wearing her knife in the same place:

Nuther cowboygirl. Here SOB carry in Nevada:

Saw this young gal at a roping in Paso Robles:

Down the hill a bit:

Gotta go feed horses. I'll finish this later and will answer all the questions folks have asked.

 

[FranklinG]

Fixed blade in pocket with no sheath.

I have... concerns about how that would go.

 

[osoverride]

I know nothing of AI, but the authoritative tone combined with the glaring inaccuracies had me scratching my head for sure. It read like a bad homework assignment.

Is there an AI that teachers or others can use to detect AI?

Maybe we should just abandon the internet to AI responses to AI content, and us humans can all go fishing or something instead.

We do. We have programs like GPTZero and others that acts as a plagiarism detector. Educators are not without some tools to handle cheaters, but we have also struggled to find alternative ways to handle students below the graduate level. For example, undergraduate philosophy students must learn how to read and write in the parlance of philosophy for obvious reasons. ChatGPT has now become so easily accessible for undergraduates that they are finding creative ways to have AI do their work. With only some slight modifications by the student, their papers will generally pass plagiarism detectors.Will those papers still get good grades despite some inaccuracies and some lack of substance or attention to detail? Yup! In general, a ChapGPT paper will produce on average a B- paper for undergraduates. ChatGPT can even produce a paper with in-text citations and a bibliography. However, it does make up sources often and so that makes papers written by ChatGPT a little easier to spot. With this in mind, it is easy to see why the traditional way of assigning written homework has been left behind in many classroom in the wake of AI text generators. So then, what do we do about instilling the parlance and methods used to write, analyse, and critique philosophical work? Responses have varied from place to place so far and honestly nothing has really came across to me as a long term solution.