Boots O'Neal - Legendary Cowboy

my full name is Bailey Melton O'Neil but I started school 38 then they my dad was called boots O'Neil and they started called me little boots the first time I got on the bus and after that it just agreed I was born 1932 and we lived on the little rights in gray county 40 or 50 miles north to Clarendon and I grew up there and it was a real good old time right my dad was a cowboy and that's all we've ever done then I left school when I was a sophomore in high school and went to work for the J's as staying at a chuck wagon in that chuck wagon we pulled it with four big horses and we stayed out seven or eight months out of the year we pull out in April if the grass was good enough to carry them remove it we rode the horses on grass and then we'd stayed till long in November and the horses that start getting weak when the grass was turning brown and you could tell and they'd pull the way Guinea and the we'd work at accounts lucky man then I went to layer to the Matadors and it was one of the biggest cow fits in the world at that time then they work with a chuck wagon there we pulled it with for big news left there went into the army and I served in Korea come back in 1955 and I went to work for the Wagner rights then that's one of the losses they had around 800 sections laid in six counties and from you know 14 15 thousand cows and I worked there for 24 years worked up to the foreman and was camp boss and run the broke paying at one time I run the brown camp for ten years one time breaking rocks for the whole run and I left there and went work for Walter Marek at ser Oklahoma and I slipped on the right Cheyenne and I worked there three years well back in the oh I'd say the late 70s mid early 80s to mid 80s we along with our horses we ran a lot of cattle and we had several ranches here in western Oklahoma one in the Panhandle one up in Kansas and one in the Texas Panhandle and one out and a two out in New Mexico and it got to be more than all of us could see after and dad shopped around to some of his old friends and acquaintances that he knew to be good managers and good cattlemen and good Cowboys and he contacted no friend of his named Bobby Thompson that he knew had worked for the four sixes for a number of years and and he talked to Bobby and was able to hire him and Bobby recommended boots O'Neill who at that time was working for the Wagner outfit and and so dad was able to hire both those guys and I was a young man at the time and it was sure a lot of fun to to cowboy and punch cows with those kind of caliber of Catalan and cowboys and I learned a lot from them enjoyed the time immensely and Treasury [Music] when when boots was here our our business was flourishing we had cattle ranches all over the country he liked to call our deal the badly scattered cattle company because we had three or four ranches in Oklahoma and one in Kansas and a couple in Texas a couple in New Mexico and one of the things that we did was find was in the spring of the year for Brandon works we had a semi truck in a no flat or a straight back trailer we fill the back end with saddle horses and tarp the front end and all the cowboys from these neighboring ranches would we throw our bed rolls and our saddles in the front of that trailer and it takes us about a month to go around to all these ranches and and work the four or five thousand hit of calves that we had and then we'd come home for about a month or two and and then go back in the fall and and do the same thing again to ship between those calves and and one of the things that we enjoyed the most about that time was was getting to do that with guys like boots and Bobby and Bob Elliot and Dave price and and some really good cowboys that helped us at the time boots was a legend when he hit the ground I think he's just one of those guys that's always been bigger than life there's about 175 saddle horses and was crossing the lower end of the pile of dirt canyon as in 1949 we we worked with chuck wagon a little time stayed in teepees and stayed out and worked seven days a week they never did pull in or pull up and you $90 a month was the going thing for a cowpuncher and but that's it the chuck wagon and tents that we're living in teepees several men under the fly the rights come down there and told me that they would on the strength that I had been a brand inspector and had a ranger commissioned and worked in this country 2530 years prior to that that they offered me a job to come up and be a cowboy and work that's what I've always enjoyed is working for a big cow fit where we work what the Catalan but I'd be certified peace officer that could happen with any security that are needed I come to state for four years and was gonna work on some stuff and get ain't gone not totally be a good deal for me and my wife's not come up they put us a new house here and fixed it up and after we had been up here fifteen or sixteen years she contacted cancer and passed away and then they moved me in this apartment they're not been sense now I'll have been here thirty years here in a few months and the lady had owns the right that then heard it from her family and she is raised here why she's very interested in families here and there if one of them's got a child that needs something or one of them employs and made what she wants to see that it's taken care of and help them get it done and she's real interested in the people's you know and knows a lot of the people real well here someday I'm gonna get to where I can't go and I still go down there inside a horse nearly every morning and do something horseback but I'm gonna get to her account and of course she had told me that I could if I could her got the world can't work been something by myself that I could stay here in this apartment and just live here one of the main things is used to we we were out you were out with the white again is out and you had no way of leaving there but a horse back there wasn't no Motor Vehicles there and you stayed there and everybody stayed no but now then we may have a Chuck way getting out and working with the wagon but there'll be a pickup that may go in and come out every day and bring different things and well then we we didn't have anything like that and they just sent us a load of groceries and the wagon months and while down the horror always count and I remember in the middle fifties there to J's they built bathrooms and put them in a good many counts it had had outhouse up until then one thing they started doing in the 60s they started letting men all Saturday at dinner til Monday morning a lot of these races take off Saturday dinner till Monday morning up til about sixty six seven long there they worked seven days a week I went to work at 49 then worked ten or 15 years that we work seven days a week nobody thought about being off just cause it's Sunday but the biggest changed I think it's been in my lifetime on these ranches and I started with 49 and the punch cows 70 some-odd years since then study it's been cellphone everybody now it's a cell phone and they you they told a man on the drive we're out riding and you called over on that looking for a bow you call her and see if Charlie found him it and used to you'd had the waiter you got in that night to see whether somebody found even you know for a kid like me to to get to hear those old guys go back and forth and you know all the things they had done insane and and get to be firsthand to it he has done so much for so long and he stayed here and he hasn't retired and he totally could and everybody looks up to him and they still you know they take him out for branding and they he goes out for absolutely everything and still works as hard as anybody else doesn't take a day off if anybody's over the top of the hill I'll go over there every once in I'll with one of the vet techs and will vaccinate some horses and he always ride up on a horse back it's like you know midday on a Saturday I'm like what are you doing he's like uh just you know got done checking cows she'll like I'd ride over here see you guys he's always doing something [Music] well it feels that makes me feel great and I'm honored that the and it's things that I never thought about you know I I never never dreamed of being getting something like that it's always somebody's little famous or educated in it I just enjoy working and riding the horse I look forward to working and still do it at 86 now be 87 my birthday now I yeah I don't dread like to see people dreads I don't dread the fact that we're gonna move in Bulls tomorrow and it's probably gonna be cold and windy or something either it doesn't that doesn't affect my Thank You Mimi [Music] as long as they run cattle on them things they will have to have Cowboys were most gather them and worked in things horseback [Music]

Channel: Embracing The West

Views: 1,168,033

Keywords: Boots O'Neal, Cowboys, 6666 Ranch, Ranches, Cattle, Legends, Americana, West, Western, Horse Industry, Cattle Industry, West Texas, Texas, King County, Cowboy Way, Simple Life

Id: __tpIB4ilzQ

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2019