Caption from LIFE. At sunset after a day's work, he collects his string of horses, considers which of the young ones to pick for a training session.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
A big reason why some enthusiasts will celebrate “National Day of the Cowboy” on Saturday is the idea that “cowboy culture” needs preserving.
And it turns out that’s not a new feeling. Nearly seven decades ago, that same idea — that a particular Western lifestyle would not survive much longer on its own — was already looming.
Aug. 22, 1949 cover of LIFE magazine featuring cowboy C. H. Long.Leonard McCombe—LIFE Magazine
When LIFE profiled a cowboy for the Aug. 22, 1949, issue, with photographs by Leonard McCombe, the land on which the cowboy once slept was already dotted with new ranch houses, and office jobs were looking more and more attractive as the post-war economy boomed. “Like the frontiersman and the forty-niner, the traditional cowboy is a peculiarly American type, now following them into an honorable extinction,” the story noted. “He is being replaced by feebler men, who refuse to work grueling hours, to go wifeless and broke to the end of their days.”
In fact, the story was billed as a “last look” at the “oldtime cowboy.”
The man at the center of that tale was Clarence Hailey “C.H.” Long, a 20-year Texan veteran of the profession who found freedom in a life of solitude and physical hardship. He personally trained all 13 of the horses he used to do his job, and his home on the range looked “exactly as a moviegover would expect.”
But in that fact, LIFE acknowledged, lay one of the more subtle truths about the past and future of the cowboy lifestyle.
Even as C.H. Long was a living embodiment of a beloved, but endangered culture, he was already part of a myth forged by Hollywood and dime-store novels, not reality. He knew that the cowboy image that the the world celebrated was sometimes more appealing than even the most rewarding liberties of life on the cattle trail.
And on his rare trips into town, he picked up magazines full of Western stories, which he dismissed as “claptrap”, but loved nonetheless, “forgetting his adventurous life to search for adventure in lurid accounts of wild affairs that never happened.”
Caption from LIFE. At 39, C.H. looks much younger, is as hard as flint.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. At sunset after a day's work, he collects his string of horses, considers which of the young ones to pick for a training session.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy Clarence H. Long riding horse and swinging lasso. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Bringing in a heard, C.H. rides slowly at its head. He and his outriders keep a funeral pace so that animals will not stampede or trot fast enough to lose any valuable weight.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy Clarence H. Long offering bit of food to horse. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy Clarence H. Long (C) standing with horse and his father, Clarence Long.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy Clarence H. Long sitting down and rolling cigarette. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. The ordeal over, the branded, inoculated, castrated calf runs off in terror. At the right stands M.H.W. Ritchie, wealthy owner of the JA ranch, who has been painting the animals' wounds with creosote.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy Clarence H. Long standing behind large group of galloping horses. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Playing with kittens at a rancher's house, C.H. happily lets them crawl all over him. Although he must sometimes be brutal in dealing with cattle, he handles other animals with the utmost gentleness. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. The only spot of shade on the empty prairie is the shadow of C.H.'s horse, in which he sits to rest his eyes from the glare and to smoke a hand-rolled cigaret. He looks with scorn on "tailor-made" cigarets but has to smoke them in mid-winter because his fingers would freeze if he took off his gloves to roll his own.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Beside chuck wagon, in the failing light, he reads a western magazine. When he is through he will pass it to another cowboy. It will be read and reread until the pages fall apart.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. A broken fence post, one of the thousand preoccupations that fill his day, is mended by C.H. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE MagazineCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE MagazineCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE MagazineCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE MagazineCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE MagazineCowboy feature from the Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine. Photos by Leonard McCombe.LIFE Magazine
