You can see "rhinestone cowboys" all over the southwestern part of the USA, and you even find a few in the north and the east. They wear designer blue jeans and embroidered cowboy shirts with pearl buttons and rhinestone studs. Most of all, they wear $600-a-pair snakeskin or alligator boots and expensive "ten gallon" Stetson hats. You find them in restaurants, casinos, shopping malls and grocery stores. They get their name from the cheap rhinestone jewelry encrusting their fancy clothes.
Rhinestone Cowgirl
Most of them have never seen a real cow except at the local rodeo and have never ridden a horse. But, they listen to country western music, and dance the Texas two-step. Many of them hang around the local saloon or pool hall. They love to wear expensive cowboy clothes.
During the last century, there were lots of cowboys on the open range
Cowboys were an integral part of the American West for only a brief period. Spanish settlers in California and Mexico established the first "ranchos" in the Southwest during the early 19th century and employed "vaqueros" to handle their cattle herds. In the middle of that century, large numbers of European-Americans and freed African-American slaves from the eastern part of the US immigrated to the Midwest and southwest in search of free or inexpensive land. At that time, the great "cattle ranches" of the West were established and the American cowboys proliferated. By the early twentieth century, modern technology had made most of the cowboy's work obsolete.
The marginal lands of the southwest do not receive enough rainfall to support forests or farming. Instead, they support thousands of square miles of grass and low vegetation with some smaller varieties of trees. It is ideal for cattle herding, but many acres of land are necessary to support each cow. In the early eighteenth century, most of the grassland in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and other southwestern states was declared "open range" which meant cattle were permitted to "range" or roam over vast areas. Cowboys were the herders that tended to these widely dispersed cattle.
Working Cowboy
Rhinestone Cowgirl
Most of them have never seen a real cow except at the local rodeo and have never ridden a horse. But, they listen to country western music, and dance the Texas two-step. Many of them hang around the local saloon or pool hall. They love to wear expensive cowboy clothes.
During the last century, there were lots of cowboys on the open range
Cowboys were an integral part of the American West for only a brief period. Spanish settlers in California and Mexico established the first "ranchos" in the Southwest during the early 19th century and employed "vaqueros" to handle their cattle herds. In the middle of that century, large numbers of European-Americans and freed African-American slaves from the eastern part of the US immigrated to the Midwest and southwest in search of free or inexpensive land. At that time, the great "cattle ranches" of the West were established and the American cowboys proliferated. By the early twentieth century, modern technology had made most of the cowboy's work obsolete.
The marginal lands of the southwest do not receive enough rainfall to support forests or farming. Instead, they support thousands of square miles of grass and low vegetation with some smaller varieties of trees. It is ideal for cattle herding, but many acres of land are necessary to support each cow. In the early eighteenth century, most of the grassland in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and other southwestern states was declared "open range" which meant cattle were permitted to "range" or roam over vast areas. Cowboys were the herders that tended to these widely dispersed cattle.
Working Cowboy
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