Grapevine Star Entertainment Inc. was founded in Historic Grapevine, Texas a quaint small city and home of Tex Dunright, America and the World’s Favorite Cowboy™ is located northeeast of Ft. Worth, Texas which is commonly known throughout the world as Cowtown.

Ft Worth is home to the Ft Worth Stockyards National Historic District and is a critical part of western cowboy history. The oldest regualrly schedule steam locomotive still runs from Grapevine to Cowtown. The railroads had a significant impact on the history and growth of cowboys. With the arrival of railroads, and an increased demand for beef in the wake of the American Civil War, the iconic American cowboy evolved as the older traditions combined with the need to drive cattle from the ranches where they were raised to the nearest railheads, often many miles away.

Ethnicity of the traditional cowboy

American cowboys were drawn from multiple sources. By the late 1860s, following the American Civil War and the expansion of the cattle industry, former soldiers from both the Union and Confederacy came west, seeking work, as did large numbers of restless white men in general. A significant number of African-American ex-slaves also were drawn to cowboy life, in part because there was not quite as much discrimination in the west as in other areas of American society at the time. A significant number of Mexicans and American Indians already living in the region also worked as cowboys.

Many early vaqueros were Indian people trained to work for the Spanish missions in caring for the mission herds. Later, particularly after 1890, when American policy promoted “assimilation” of Indian people, some Indian boarding schools also taught ranching skills. The “Indian Cowboy” also became a commonplace sight on the rodeo circuit.

Because cowboys ranked low in the social structure of the period, there are no firm figures on the actual proportion of various races. One writer states that cowboys were “… of two classes—those recruited from Texas and other States on the eastern slope; and Mexicans, from the south-western region. …Census records suggest that about 20% of all cowboys were of African-American ancestry—ranging from about 25% on the trail drives out of Texas, to less in the northwest. Similarly, cowboys of Mexican descent averaged about 15% of the total, but were more common in Texas and the southwest.

Regardless of ethnicity, most cowboys came from lower social classes and the pay was poor. The average cowboy earned approximately a dollar a day, plus food, and, when near the home ranch, a bed in the bunkhouse, usually a barracks-like building with one open room.

Development of the modern cowboy

Over time, the cowboys of the American West developed a personal culture of their own, a blend of frontier and Victorian values that even retained vestiges of chivalry. Such hazardous work in isolated conditions also bred a tradition of self-dependence and individualism, with great value put on personal honesty, exemplified in songs and poetry. These traditions were further etched into the minds of the general public with the development of Wild West Shows, which showcased and romanticized the life of both cowboys.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Western movies popularized the cowboy lifestyle but also formed persistent stereotypes. In pop culture, the cowboy and the gunslinger are often associated with one another. In reality, working ranch hands had very little time for anything other than the constant, hard work involved in maintaining a ranch. Likewise, cowboys are often shown fighting with American Indians. However, the reality was that, while cowboys were armed against both predators and human thieves, and often used their guns to run off people of any race who attempted to steal cattle, nearly all actual armed conflicts occurred between Indian people and cavalry of the U.S. Army.

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