Cowboy Spur Maker: The Story of Ed Blanchard - Hardcover

Pattie, Jane; Kelly, Tom

9781585441747: Cowboy Spur Maker: The Story of Ed Blanchard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585441740 ISBN 13: 9781585441747

Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr, 2002

Ed Blanchard was best known for making spurs that fit a cowboy's boots. Yet Blanchard was known to family and friends as a wild, reckless cowboy long before horsemen of the West recognized him as a master maker of cowboys spurs. It was his years spent herding cattle and cinching his saddle on broncs that taught him his trade as both a cowboy and a spur maker.
This story of the man and his craft relies heavily on the memories of Blanchard's cousin, New Mexico rancher Tom Kelly of Water Canyon, who grew up with Ed and his friends. Co-author Jane Pattie has researched the times and added historical background, and she has also drawn on interviews she did with Blanchard for her earlier book, Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers. But it is from Kelly that she has uncovered Blanchard's work in the cattle business and how he learned from a neighboring rancher the art of hammering hot steel into the shape of spurs. Kelly's ranch life as well as his own spurs are also pictures in this attractive and inviting little volume.
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 those of commercial manufacture. Ranch life, cowboying, and metalworking in the American West are interwoven through the book, as they were in the real life of Ed Blanchard, who emerges from these pages as a humorous, down-home regional character readers will be glad to get to know.

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About the Author:

JANE PATTIE is an independent writer who has published numerous articles on the American West and has written or contributed to ten books, including Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers from Texas A&M University Press. She lives in Aledo, Texas. TOM KELLY is a lifelong New Mexico rancher and raconteur.

Review:

"The author's crisp writing style, replete with humor and understatement, captures the essence of the oral tradition and the cowboy way of 'spinning a yarn,' but without romanticizing the subject's life. A believable human portrait, unobscured by the cowboy of legend, emerges as a result." - B. Byron Price, Executive Director, Buffalo Bill Historical Center

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