Cherokee Outlet Cowboy:Recollections of Laban S. Records

Description

At age fifteen| Laban Samuel Records (1856-1940)| the youngest of twelve children| moved west with his family from Indiana to Kansas.
About sixty-six years later| writing in pencil on Big Chief tablets| he remembered this move and his other western experiences through the year 1892| when he settled with his wife and children on the claim he had staked in the Cheyenne-Arapaho Run.
In the intervening years| Laban was a freighter with his brother on the Santa Fe Trail and a cowpuncher in the Dodge City stockyards.
He first encountered Indians on the banks of the Verdigris River in southern Kansas| learned the Osage language| and became an agency cook at Pawhuska.
Later he worked in the Cherokee Outlet as a line rider for the T-5 and Spade ranches| eventually becoming a foreman.
Because of Laban’s firsthand knowledge of people and events| his account adds a new perspective to several infamous episodes.
For example| he barely escaped the raid by Dull Knife and other Cheyenne warriors in 1878| and he knew the participants in the Medicine Lodge bank robbery| the Talbot raid at Caldwell| and the Potts-Franklin shootout on the T-5 Ranch.
In addition| Laban recounted many affectionate and often humorous stories about Outlet ranchers such as Maj.
Andrew Drumm| Outlet cowpunchers such as Charlie Siringo| Texas trail drivers such as “Shanghai” Pierce| and western writers such as Thomas McNeal of the Medicine Lodge Cresset| Scott Cummings (the “Pilgrim Bard”)| and Pawnee Bill.
But perhaps most memorable are Laban’s stories of everyday cowboy life: herding cattle with his dog Shep| riding his favorite horses| and surviving the rigors encountered by everyone on the western range – tornadoes|rattlesnakes| cold and snow| outlaws| and hard work.