Pioneering In Texas And Wyoming. Incidents In The Life Of James C. Shaw Orin, Wyoming

JAMES C. SHAW

Publication: Privately published, 1931, Orin, Wyoming

Facsimile reprint of the First edition. 8vo. Inscribed in ink at the top of the verso of the title page, "James C. Shaw grandfather of WM Gray and James Hageman of this area." Yellow printed wrappers, [4], 43 pp., foreword. Herd 2040 says: "Exceedingly rare." "The edition of this privately printed little book was soon exhausted because the author took the books home and let his visiting friends carry them off. It is now a much sought collector's item." Incidents in the life of a range cowman, describing a fifteen-hundred-mile journey on the Northern Trail from South Texas to South Dakota to Wyoming. "Shaw offers a rare first-hand account of the hard conditions of the trail and the many "bad men"... horse and cattle thieves, and worse ... who inhabited it. Also found in these pages are descriptions of the day-to-day operations of a cattle drive during the era of Texas' spectacularly large cattle companies and the reign of the "cattle kings" on the northern range. As Shaw's narrative heads north on the trail, the reader is offered a tour of several Texas towns still in their formative years, as well as of notorious cow towns such as Dodge City and Ogallala. Even further adventure and more toil were waiting Shaw at the end of the great trail, and his first hard years spent on the Wyoming range are described in realistic detail." The author left south Texas in 1879 and came to Wyoming. He relates conditions on the trail and tells of his gratification to have had a part in the building of the state. An inked inscription at the top of the inside front cover: "James C. Shaw, grandfather of Wm Gray and James Hageman of this area," front cover lightly soiled, interior is clean and tight. Overall a very good copy of an exceedingly rare book. We know of the existence of one copy of the first edition. and this is one of four known copies of the reprint edition.