Now that we’ve had some beautiful Spring weather, I have been enjoying horseback riding with a good friend, James Hughes. He sometimes writes for “Fencepost” which is a weekly publication with a western flavor. From time to time he encloses photos and his little stories are titled “The old man and the Appaloosa”.  It is real easy to figure out which one is the old man — he is the one wearing the black hat!

James and I are both interested in early day Saguache history. We often talk of how things must have been about 134 years ago when such people as John Lawrence, Nathan Russell, Prudencio Garcia, Nathan Ward, M. Ed Werner and other folks were taking up homesteads. James would like to have known Otto Mears, but I think I would have preferred taking in some of the Fandangos which John Lawrence wrote about. From what I have read and what I’ve heard some oldtimers say — a man back in those days could do “just about anything he was big enough to do.”

I am real sure I would have liked to have known Bob Morrison who was often referred to as “the race horse man”. Also, I can only imagine what it must have been ‘like to watch the horse race that “broke Saguache County” when “Little Casino” defeated “Red Buck”, who was ridden by the little red-headed Irishman Johnny O’Neil. Another prominent citizen who lived here quite a few years later, made a pretty big splash — Horace “Boss” Means. My friend, Spike Lovato remembers from his childhood days, seeing Boss Means driving a Model T-Ford with his saddle tied across the hood.

I have often wished that I had been around back in those days and could have known such folks as the Fullerton brothers who are said to have laid claim to hundreds of horses.

But then, after giving it some serious thought – I am real glad I didn’t live then, ‘cause I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this now!