A rodeo cowboy is thrown off a big bull at the Navy sponsored Camp Pendleton, California rodeo in the 1950's. The annual rodeo, to benefit the Navy Relief Society ,was promoted as the "World's Largest Free Rodeo". The rodeo was held in June of each year. 

A lone cowboy on horseback stands watch over a herd of cattle on the famous 6666 Ranch in West Texas sometime in the late 1940's.  The Guthrie, Texas ranch, which was founded in the 1870's by the Burnett Family is still an active cattle ranch. This famous ranch played host in the past to the likes of Theodore Roosevelt & Will Rogers.  The ranch includes 245,000 acres which makes it one of the largest spreads in the Lone Star State. Photo printed from negative.

Grandpa Jones and the Carson Cowboys 1930's & 1940's popular radio show in St. Louis, Missouri. They performed on 3 local radio stations, KSD, WEW and KWK, on different days of the week in competition with several shows Uncle Dick Slack sponsored on the competing station KMOX.  Grandpappy Jones was the group leader and emcee of the show which aired from the Chase Hotel in St. Louis.

Early promotional photograph of Honky Tonk-Country Western singer and recording star Hank Thompson.  Taken from his early days with "The Hank Thompson Show" over WKY Radio in Oklahoma City, the Waco, Texas native became a popular country recording star for many decades as well as a Las Vegas entertainer.  Arguably his biggest hit was his 1952 #1 smash, "Wild Side of Life", which many people consider the greatest honky tonk song ever recorded.

The Sons of the Pioneers are shown here with Roy Rogers.  The group was the foremost vocal & instrumental group in western music and lasted seven decades!  The group's roots lay in the Great Depression when Cincinnati-born Leonard Slye headed to California and ended up packing fruit for Del Monte.  By chance he entered an amateur contest on an LA radio show which lead him to join a group called the "Rocky Mountaineers".  By 1933, after various name changes and additional members including a Safeway warehouse worker and a golf caddy, the new group debuted on KFWB as "The Pioneer Trio" but were mistakenly introduced as the "Sons of the Pioneers".  They were signed to a Decca Record contract in 1934 and recorded 32 records.  The Farr brothers from Texas were added to the group in 1935.  They originally teamed in the movies with Gene Autry but due to legal disputes Roy Rogers ended up with "The Pioneers".  In 1938 Pat Brady (far right) joined the group as a bass singer and comic.  Roy Rogers ended up in western movies and the "Sons" doing backup.  After many years of success the group was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976.  Now there you have it!  An interesting story to go with a great photo.

Publicity shot of America's favorite singing Western TV stars, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

1967 photo of the coffee break on the Spade Ranch in West Texas.  Spade Ranch was the name of two separate West Texas ranches, both of which were invariably linked through the innovation of barbed wire.  Each ranch was under separate ownership.