Institute of Texan Cult ures
Oral History Program
FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
CHUCK WAGON
INTERVIEW I'lITH: Tom Perini
INTERVIEI-lER: Esther MacMillan
Date : August 5 , 1983
Place: Oral History Office, ITC
E~l : I '"ant to talk about chuck "lagol1s because that's such a
part of our history and our heritage . I have interviewed two
people in t he past about crossing Texas in covered wagons .
That ' s all I've go tten concerning chuck wagons and so what
I ' d like from you is ... can you push way back and tell me why
chuck wagons started?
TP : Chuck wagons were the first portable kitchens on the
ranch. You have two bas i c types of chuck wagons. You have
the types that were used on the cattle drives t hat would go
from west Texas all the way into, like Kansas. And those chuc
wago ns actually went with the herds. They foll owed the herds ,
or p r eceded the herds in many cases . They ' d go in front a nd
set up and they'd drive the cattle to them .
Of course different operations were different ways . But
t hi s was a portable kitchen .
The big ran ches used chuck wagons . They would take the
chuck wagons out on the ranch to hit different pastures . They
wou ld go to a corner where you'd have 4 pastures coming to-
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PERINI 2
TP: gether and they'd set up for 2 months . They'd set up
big tents, or flys as they called them . And the flys would
have sides that could be rolled up in t he summer time and
let down in the wint er . They would stay there for maybe a
month. All the cowboys would drive the cattle into the wagon
or the pens and then work them. But this was a portable
kitchen .
First of all, there is no base, no company - made chuck
wagons , to my knm-lledge . Like the Stud ebaker Wagon Company
did not make a "chuck wagon." The wagons were conve rted ranch
wagons . And the cooks would normally make the chuck boxes.
So you got di f ferent shapes . Some liked one shape ; some
liked another. On my particular wagon, the shape ' s a little
different because after researching and looking at this , it
was a shape that I liked.
The normal shape is --the cook would make the box and
place it back of the wagon and it would have a lid that would
lay down and make a portable work area . They normally had 2
wagons that would accompany. You ' d have a chuck wagon and
then you'd have anoth e r wagon that would carry fir ewood and
some of the heavy things.
EM: Tha t I didn't know; that's i n teresting.
TP : It took a lot because a chuck wagon would carry the
utensils and the food and things but you had to carr y the
axes and shovels and firewood and bed rolls . The chuck
wagon unit actually carried food, everything to serve it with ,
to cook it, and the cowboy's s l eeping bags and everything.
EM: Oh they did? They didn ' t carry their sleepi.ng bags
with them?
PERINI 3
TP : They would carry a small . . . t hey ' d carry their ponchos
and th ings like that . But the big sleeping bags and the
tents and things would all be carried by the chuck wagon .
That ' s why , when you look at a chuck wagon, they can be
different in all ways because the ranch cook normally built
the box.
EM : What was in the box?
TP : Well, you ' d have allyour basic s t aples. You know we
laugh about barbecue as part of the chuck wagon but there was
very , very seldom that they would have had barbecue . They
would have had the basic s t aples . They would have had beans
and hard tack , which would be your biscuit; it would be a rea
hard type b i scuit , not a fluffy type . And t he c owboys could
carry this in their saddle bags . When t hey ' d have breakfast ,
they ' d have scrambled eggs and things; they'd e a t anything
the cook had which was usually fried salt pork or something
on this line .
On occasions , they would have fresh beef . They would
kill a calf and they would eat the real good parts to begin
with and then they would try to dry the rest of it for a
couple of days because they had no refrigeration, or anything
l ike that . They'd have to salt it down. So they would carry
lots of salt pork . And canned things ; canned tomatoes and
things l i ke that that would keep . ./
EM: They did?
TP: Yes.
EM: One of the interviews I did , they spoke of canned peaches ,
canned fruit .
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PERINI 4
TP : Yes. And lots o f dried fruit . Just i magine being in
a situation where you ' re serving food without refl:igeration .
So t hat limits you . _
EM : Salt pork is basic , isn ' t it?
TP : Yes .
EM : They would have f lour, of cour s e , a lways . What did they
use for fat when t hey were making biscuits?
TP : I would assume t hey would use l i ke the bacon fat , or
some of the drippings . They would keep well. I n the r eal
heat probably wou l dn't keep a long time but .. like t he bacon
you would use would be your big slabs of s al t pork. And of
course they ' d have hams , cured, things like t hat . It was a
l ot of the jerky type food , the dried me ats , which was mainly
their stapl es .
But the nice thing was , the cowboy could grab a handful
of biscuits and some of t he fried por k , wrap it up in some -
thing , put it on his sadd l e and he could eat that all day . It
would keep for as l ong as they want it.
EM : It was always biscuits? It was never corn bread?
TP : Well , I 'm sure they did do things like corn bread but ..
EM: Biscuits were bas ic .
TP : Bi scui ts were basic. Now t hey would do sour dough bis-cuits
that would be your kind of fluffy ones . It would all
depend on your cook , what kind . But it 's not as glamorous
and it ' s not as appealing as we t hink of i t today where you ' d
have a big T bone steak; you' d have a b iscuit that would take
10 or 12 hours to cook . They didn ' t have 10 or 12 hours to
cook .
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EM : Beans were pretty basic , too, weren ' t they?
TP: Beans were basic . And they ,,,ould probably cook a big
pot of beans, probably carry ' em for a day.
EM: Did they drink co ffee ? Only?
TP : I would assume coffee and water. Of course it was a cow
operation; they could have had some milk . But I don't vis uali~e
the cowboys out milking the cows .
On your cattle drives , they ",ould go hundreds of miles .
Your wagon , it was a different type wagon than they would use
on the ranches . It ' s thi n- tired wagon. Cal led , l ike a butcher
knife tire , which is shaped like a moon . And it travels better
over creek beds and over rough terrain . And it ' s a big tire;
high tire.
Your ranch wagons , that would stay on a ranch .. you take
a large ranch that would be 200,00 0 acres , they had the wide -
tire wagons because they ' re not really traveling that much .
They're actually going to a location, which might be 8 mile s ,
setting up camp for the month and then after they'd worked
that particular bunch of cattle , they ' d move another B miles
and set up another camp . But that would be a heavier type
wagon . I know for example, the pitchfork Ranch and the SHS
Ranch . . (not , SMS) and 11athews had smaller tire wagons. But
the Pitchfork and the 4 Sixes . . there , the tires on the wagon
are huge in width . They ' re 5 to 6 inches in wid t h, which is
l ike a lumber wagon or a wagon that would have hauled oil
f ield pipe. They carried a lot of weigh t . On that part i cu l ar
kind of wagon they might have even had wood burning stoves ;
an actua l stove with ovens and things . They wou l d unload
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PERINI 6
TP: underneath their big tent and really s et up a kitchen .
EM: So there were the two different kinds. When you speak
of tires , you/'re speaking of rubber or .. ?
TP : No, these would be steel in reference to the tire . But
the wheel is the whole unit and the tire is the steel part
that goes around it. Then you have the fello~ is the wood
part right underneath the steel . Then you have the spoke and
the hub . So when I refe r t o the tire, I 'm actually referring
to the width of the steel band.
E~l : I'm a little confused . You spoke of the narrov' one t hat
went over creek beds and things easily and then the wide ones
weren ' t going to go as far as the narrow ones. Is that right?
TP: Yes . And the wide one would have been able to carry a
lot more weight . The e arly chuck wagons that crossed on the
trail drives was a lighter type wagon ; more narrow tire. I 'm
talking about maybe 2 inch to 2~ inch tire wid th . When I
made reference, the tire s were all steel, the tire i s steel but
the spokes, and fellow and hubs were all \vood . Now later ,
t hey came in with steel. I don't remember seeing any of the
chuck wagons with steel . Solid stee l wheels.
EM: Did 2 horses pull, usually pull?
TP : 2 , 4, and sometimes 6 .
EM: That many?
TP : On the big ranch wa g o n s , they'd have 3 spans .
EM: Re ally?
TP : Yes, but you were carrying a tremendous amount of we i ght .
You we re carrying groceries for a month or so .
EH : On an average , how many cowboys would be coming in to
eat three meals a day?
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PERINI 7
TP : Well , they would do it in shifts. If you we re on a ranch,
you would be working cattle so you would actually have 3 meals
a day. Your ranch-type chuck wagon might have had scrambled
eggs in the morning because somebody could have brought the
eggs out and they would have been able to hold them. On a
ranch situation t hey would have been coming in after they ' d
worked the cattle , at noon. They'd fix a lunch and everybody
would come in and eat and then they ' d go back and work cattle.
On the trail, you always had men out with the cattle.
So you had some men in camp that would eat; they ' d eat and
maybe sleep a while . It would be a rotation type of situation.
EM : It was a 24 hour job, wasn ' t it? You can't leave the
cattle a lone can you?
TP : 24 hour job . Yeah . You had to have cowboys out with the
cattle all the time .
When we visualize a chuck wagon and things, I can see T--
bone steaks and all this and this just very very rarely happened
except if a cow broke a leg or something and of course ,
they ' d butcher her right there and that night they ' d have
fresh meat . And if they were by water . . of course if it was
a cool time of year , they could have held it . But in any of
the heat, you couldn't hold it .
EM: Have I read in romantic stories or something that some
of the chuck wagon cooks were great and the cowboys tried to
get on that crew?
TP: Oh yes. Oh sure . The cook was in charge of the wagon .
He had the say. Not over the range boss , as such, but he
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PERINI 8
TP : controlled it. He ' s the one that said what time they
would h ave their dinner and what they would have . So he \\1as
the boss of that end of it . And did everything from keep
the medicine to , I guess , the whiskey and everything.
EM : He had to do the medicine?
TP : They would have carried all their medical stuff with
them . So he was kind of a . . in that field it was kind of like
a mother situation . He did the cooking and the whole thing.
So the chuck wagon was a base of operation .
EM: Really central to . . .
TP: Without the chuck wagon, you just had the cowboys kind
of by themselves. As I say, carr i ed t heir bed rolls , the
medic ine, and the food . So the chuck wagon was a very important
part.
EM: That tent is interesting . They pitched a big tent .
You spoke of flys . . flies or f l ys?
TP: I don ' t know . The tent would be called a fly. I ' ve
h ad problems when I've tried to e xp lain this . I ' ll be talkin'
to someone and say offhand , they'd set up a fly . They think
a fly i s like the insect. A fly was normally a white ducking .
In those days , they used a lot of white ducking . And they
would range in all sizes. Some were small; some were big, two
or three times l arger than. a ... like a funera l tent . It would
cover the whole chuck wagon .
The f l y that \~e use on our wagon now I think is about
28 fee t long and 16 feet wide. And it was designed to cove r
the wagon and also cover the area where the cook would be ,
just to keep him out of the sun.
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PERINI 9
TP : On the tra il , when they we re going on a re a l trail drive ,
they would not have set up a big tent like that . It vlOuld
have been more of an open a i r deal. Maybe with a small fly
that wou l d have been 10 by 10 that "lOuld have just come off
t he back of the chuck box to give the cook some relief .
But the b i g ranches , when they do the big r anch deals ,
they wou l d set up these b i g flies or t ents . They ' d have sides
tha t "lould ro 11 down . I n the winter time o r a rain storm ,
and it ' s comfortable .
EM : Could they keep l em warm?
TP : Reasonab ly .
EM: If they had stoves?
TP : If they h ad stoves . It would certai nly have kept the
wind off . Chill, or something like t hat.
EM: Basically , t hose guys got to eat beans and pork and bis-c
u its.
TP: And potatoes.
EM: They had potatoes?
TP : Well, t hey would have carried potatoes and onions . If
you visualize what you can cook .. i f you have, O.K., beans ,
potatoes , onions . . . potatoes would have t rave led for a litt l e
while . I don ' t know for how long bu t i t would not be a
per i shab l e i tem . And if you had c a nned or stewed t omatoes ,
canned fruit, thi ngs like that .. some fresh meat and basically
your pork that would keep once it wa s cur ed . You can k ind
o f get an idea of what your menu would have been . - . EI-I: Pr etty darn monotonous . You spoke of dr i ed f r uit, too.
I hadn ' t thought about that . Dried apples , dried apricots ,
th i ngs l i ke tha t .
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PERINI 10
TP: Apricots; they liked the dried fruit . I don ' t know , .
the nat u r al sweetness or whatever .
I woul d imagine the food would be pretty b l and compared
to what \~e are accustomed to . And I am sure they would go
by other ranches and town s and stop, even on a trail drive ,
they wou l d stop by the town and maybe stay there a day or b"
Re - s t aple the Vlagon . And at that point probab l y splurge and
get fresh meat or maybe some chickens and eggs and all tha t .
A fresh egg would not keep very long on a trail and would be
difficult to handle and carry.
EM: Is most of this trail busines s in the summer time? I n
the good weather? Do they kind of hole in in the Vlin ter?
TP: I wou ld imagine it would be in the spring or the fall. I
don ' t think they would have taken it in to the hard winter
be cause that makes it very difficult as fa r as t he cattle,
the extreme cold . And in the real hot part of the summer ,
I don ' t think they ' d be trying to move cattle . Because heat
is . . when moving catt le, the shrink would be so extreme . I
would imagine . . and this is a guess . . but I would glless that
maybe in the early spring Vlould have been a good time .
EM : But you're getting into hot weather in Texas, no matter
what.
TP: That ' s right but you ' r e still getting in spring . . now
you're getting rains and things . You ' re also getting fresh
grass in fron t of you; you ' re going into your growing season.
EM: In one of the covered wagon interviews I did, one of
them did some hunting on the trail . Shot a deer occasionally
and what not. Do you suppose they ever did things like t~at?
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TP: I 'm sure they d i d . Because if t hey had de er ; you ' d
run across something, that woul d be a tre a t . That's fresh
meat. I'm sure that they did or if they ran into a t urkey
or quail or grouse or anything like that , I 'm sure they would
have taken advan tage o f it .
EM : Sometimes you read about the cook making a pie o r a cak
and it was just gang busters .
TP : I think they would have done that. Now sugar . . of cours
they would have taken sugar and co f fee . Salt and pepper and
your seasonings . I 'm s ure that a pie or some kind of sweet
type deal would have been .. . You could have gotten you r canned
fruit , peaches , or whatever, and made a pie or some Dutch
oven deal .. would have been a r eal t reat . ~
EM: What k i nd of heat did th ey use mostly? Fuel?
TP : It would h av e been wood that they pic ked up on the trail .
EM: And did they have stoves , Dutch ovens , or something
like that , or did they cook in t he open?
TP : Most of it would have been Dutch ovens. On your trai l
drives, it would have been Dutch ovens . On the ranch t ype
chuck wagon, they could have act ually had wood burning stoves .. .
and that type thing . But the Dutch oven is a very practical
way to cook.
EM: De s cribe a Dutch oven .
TP: We ll, a Dutch oven is a cast iron pot. They range in
any s izes from 6 inche s a cross t o 16" s . Some have hand les on
' em ; some of ' em have a bai 1, which is a loop that goes across
the top. A Dutch oven has legs , three legs underneath it .
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PERINI 12
TP : And that's to raise it up so you can ... . the principle of
cooking with a Dutch oven is that it has a lid tha t goes on
the top. And has a rim around the lid so you can actually ..
when you ' re cooking with Dutch oven , you would build a fire
off to the side; burn it down to coals ; and when you got coals
you'd get a shovel and get a shovel full of coals and put on
the ground and spread them out; place the Dutch oven on top
of the coals with the food inside. If you were baking , you
would put a lid on t op of it and cover that with coals . So
you ' d be getting heat from the top and bottom . So you get a
browning action as well as a cooking action from the bottom.
EM : If you ' re making biscuits in a Dutch oven , they're inside
the pot?
TP: They would be inside the pot.
EM : They are? The heat on the top , too.
TP: Heat on the top and the bottom ,
EM : Suppose you're cooking beans , you've soaked your beans ,
you 've been cooking those for quite a while; you 've probably
pu t the bacon in with it , haven ' t you?
TP : Yes .
EM : Suppose you want to cook some biscuits for tha t supper .
Is that going to be up in the l id?
TP: No. You 'll have several Dutch ovens with you , You might
have 6 or 8 Dutch ovens plus several kind of pots , not the
size of a wash pot, but larger cast vessels. And you would
have had skillets and your normal cookware . So you might
have had a pot of beans cooking that could have been on a
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PERINI 13
TP: tripod over the fire th a t wou ld h ave been open top . And
then you could have a Dutch oven with biscuits and then you
could have a frying pan which you were frying the s alt pork in.
Or the venison , or whatever.
EM: It just came into my mind, my g randmother used to call
that kind of frying pan a spider. Have you ever heard that?
TP: No, I never have .
EM: A thr ee-legged iron skillet .
TP : That ' s intere sti ng . What did she c all it?
EM : She called it a sp ider . I t h ad t h r ee legs, would that
have had anything to do with it?
TP : I've never heard t hat but I ' ll do some checking . If you
have ever cooked with cast and know how t o take c are of it ..
wh at I 'm saying now, I know there are ma ny theories .. I ' ve heard
that you 're not supposed to wash i t with soap and water . I
do wash mine with soap and water but I do not scrub like with
a Br i llo pad where you wou ld take the season. We alvlay s are
very careful with them. We t urn ' em upside down so if t here ' s
any condensation o f water or anything, it won ' t stay in t he pot .
And when you do wash a pot , or Dutch oven , you always pu t i t
back over the fir e to take a ny moisture out from the cast , the
inside . If you d o n 't it will rust.
EM: Do you rub them with oil?
TP: Rub them with oil and t hen I ' ll season mine . I ' ll get a
lot of meat fat and t hings t ha t are trimmings and actually
cook it down and make tal low.
EM: You do? So that ' s the way you season a pot?
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TP: That's the way I do it . I will get beef trimming, for
example , put it in a Dutch oven or a large cast pot, cook it
until it actually made tallow . Then you can use that ta llow
for seasoning other pots or leather or soap. They would have
done that type , they would have kept that tallow for the i r
pots and for their saddles , boots .. that would have been a
very important staple .
EM : Of course they would have . Tell me now , why do you come
to Folklife Festival?
TP: We were invited on the first year . I guess that was 12
ye ars ago, to help represent the cowboy end of the Fe stival .
And there're not many chuck wagons left anymore . The one we
presently have here is completely restored . We had to do it
because there are just very , very few chuck wagons .
I know that the Swenson ranch has just restored theirs
this last year .
EM : Was your s old to begin with?
TP : Ours was old but we've added to it. A lot of things on
it now were taken from other chuck wagons, othe r parts . But
there are just very few people that have them .
So by doing this , we brough t the chuck wagon and people
can . . . I was out t his afternoon . . and there were more kids
climbing up having their picture s taken . In the seat, what-ever.
You j ust don' t see them unless you ' re in a museum
situation .
EM: What we want to know is what the various people par-ticipating
get out of th is . Do you get a big kick out of
telling these things about it? .-/
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TP: Oh sure . And a lo t of people will ask. Some don ' t .
Some will jus t look and take pictures . Personally I think
it ' s a very good th ing, in reference to the chuck wagon .. and
t he whole Festival . Peop le seem to enjoy it . I've seen an
awful lot of famil i es. Mother , father , and three children .
I ' ve seen more families so far this year th a n I ' ve seen re-cently.
I have noticed it more .
EM: Everybody speaks of that .. that it' s a family operation .
TP : I think it ' s very important .
EM : I think so, too . What are you cooking up there?
TP: We're doing beef and beans . The reason that we do this
is that for us to handle it , prepare it here , is easy . We
actually cook the beans on the ground . But we cook the bar-becue
at the ranch and bring it up here already cooked .. Our
situation is that it would be so di fficult to cook the bar-becue
up here that we ' ll cook it at the ranch and bring it in .
EM : Your address is Buffalo Gap?
TP: Yes . That's outside of Abilene , about 9 o r 10 miles .
EM : Buffalo Gap has been in the news late l y. Di d a beautiful
girl from Buffalo Gap win a beauty contest?
TP: There was a girl from Buffalo Gap t hat was in the Miss
Universe or something . My gosh , did she win? She was a
beautiful girl.
EM: That's a marvelous Texas name .
TP : Buffalo Gap is a town of about 350 peop l e . And it ' s
nestled right in the Continental(?) Divide . We have a nice
mountain range that runs through there .
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PERINI 16
EM : You do?
TP : The buffalo would actually come through the gap in the
migration . We have big beautiful live o aks and pecan t rees
out in the middle of west Texas. It ' s just like an oasis .
EM : West of Abilene .
TP : No , i t ' s south of Abi lene .
EN: You've come a fur piece to the Festival ! You think tha-:J
people coming to the Fo l k l ife Festival get a lot out of the j -- chuck "lagon?
TP: Oh yes . And we have a good time . i'.nd I think by us
having a good time , it helps the people that walk by. \"Ie
started a deal several years ago and I have to l augh about i
\"Ie did this just to have fun . Started giving c owboy kisses .
EM: I saw t hat sign!
TP: Just a fun gimmick type thing . \,e have a big s ign that
says, FREE , COIVBOY KISSES \"11TH PURCHASE OR BY REQUEST . And w,.
kiss an awful lot o f girls . It is fun . We have mothers brin
up their children to be kissed so they can have their picture
taken , and all that. But it's been fun.
EM: The whole thing is fun . Is there anything else you can
think of s hould be on this tape that. we haven't thought about?
TP: I don't remember everything that Vle ' ve said but I think
basically ..
EM: \"Ihy it arose , what it was like , what it carried . .
TP: And the purpose . I think we ' ve covered basically every-thing
.
EM: One of the things I find very interesting i s the width
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PERINI 17
EM : of the wheels .
TP : Somebody will come up and look at our wagon and they ' l l
go "Oh this doesn ' t look like a chuck wagon ." Well, there ' s
nothing really as a reference to a chuck wagon because you
can look ... and I ' ve studied many photographs of chuck wagons
and they all basically are the same . They ' ve all got 4 wheels
and some type of device where they can cover them to keep
the rain out and they have a chuck box. But they ' re a l l
di ffer en t sizes , shapes, co l ors.
EM : You ' ve seen the chuck wagon here?
TP : Yes.
EM : That's the one I 'm familiar with . That ' s the only one I
knovr .
TP : That is a basic chuck wagon. If I remember correctly , it ' s
kind of a small wagon . It was probably a wagon that would
have bee n used in a trail drive .
EM: That was interesting , also , that sometimes you had 3
spans of horses .
TP: Depending on the weight. If it was a heavy wagon , they
would have had quite a few. You could have had a situation
with just your two horses or four , or whatever. Your three
spans wo u ld have been a heavy load . But if they ' d need it ,
t hey would have used it.
EM : Does the cook have to know how to handle those horses?
TP : The cook did , yes. The cook would have had some helpers,
too , that would have .. I'm guessing , young boys that maybe
we r e not cowboys, ~los t of your c owboys were young kids,
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PERINI 18
TP: basically . I would imagine young boys as help; helping
harness everything up in the morning, water the stock , and
all that .
EM : probably wash the dishes! Did all chuck wagon s have
canvas c overs?
l'P: Well, they had cover s ; they had the bmvs and they wouln
have used the canvas or ducking cover . Now that could also
have been used, they would have taken that off and used that
for part of their fly .. over the cook area.
EM: Served two purpos es .
TP: They would spread that out over the ground and use it to
dance . On ranch parties, they would spread the ducking out
on the ground and the girls from the city would come out and
they ' d have their big dance . And t hey would dance on the
ducking .
EM : Tha t's interesting . Fascinating . I 'm very grateful to
you fo r taking your time to do this .
TP: My pleasure. Please remember a lot of these things I've
just re se arched myself and you can get many d ifferent vari -
ations. But it is an interesting sub ject .
EM : What kind of ranch do you have?
TP: A cattle ranch in Buffalo Gap .
EM: You must have good pasture if you ' ve got a li ttle oasis
there,
TP : We've got good pastures . It ' s not a big ranch. I'm
running 1200 acres . At one time, I ' ve leased considerable
land around it and in different parts of Texas . The ranching
business is pretty difficult at this time, so I'm pul lin' in
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PERINI 19
TP : my horns .
EM : Are you having water problems out there?
TP : Right n ow we are , yes . We ' ve had some rain but our
lakes are p r ett y low , tanks and everything are low . But
we ' re a l l r i ght now but if we went several months , it would
be bad .
EM: You don ' t have any big cat tle drives . Are the r e any
chuck wagons in use these days? Or is it all motorized?
TP : There might be one or two in the state. For example now,
you have a motorized truck with a big trailer . You could
pull it out . I would say there ' d be very , very few chuck
wagons and if they do it , they probably do it strictly for
sentimental reasons .
EM : Maybe a guest ranch or something like that . That ' s
one reason I wanted this on tape because t he things I 'm
collecting are the things that just aren ' t going to be
around much l onger .. like the wheel wright and the soap lady,
things like that .
END OF INTERVIEW, 25+ minutes .
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