Oldest Texas Cowboy, 91, Dies With Boots on, Wide Sky Above

CLARENDON, Tex. —  A man believed to have been the oldest working cowboy in Texas died the way he wanted, stretched out in the prairie grass with his boots on, friends said.

Thomas Everett Blasingame, 91, was found lying on his back Wednesday by fellow cowhands at the JA Cattle Co. ranch near Clarendon in the Texas Panhandle. His saddled horse was standing nearby.

“If he had written it down on paper, he wouldn’t have changed a word,” said Buster McLaury, cattle foreman on the ranch.

About 400 people attended graveside services Saturday at the JA Cattle Co. cemetery. The last burial in the cemetery had been in 1899.

Johnny Farrar, the ranch’s business manager, said Blasingame had been riding a young horse he was training just before his death.

“He must have known he was in trouble, dismounted and just laid down and died,” Farrar said. “There were no bruises or scratches, so he wasn’t bucked off.”

“He was a good, kind man to everyone,” said Blasingame’s wife, Eleanor. “When he died, it was the first time I’ve ever seen a bunch of cowboys just crying. They were all devastated by his death.”

Blasingame’s son, Thomas E. Blasingame Jr. of Hereford, said the cowboy was laid to rest during a traditional “cowboy funeral,” with the hearse accompanied to the graveyard by Blasingame’s riderless horse and cowboys on horseback.

“There were lots of people there,” the younger Blasingame said.

Blasingame was born in Waxahachie on Feb. 2, 1898, and was a cowboy all of his life.

He came to the JA Cattle Co. in 1918, then left two years later to go to Southern California, New Mexico and Arizona. He returned in 1934 and remained at the ranch until his death.

He “had chosen to be a cowboy when he was a little kid,” his son said. “The reason he lived so long was because he did what he did for his entire life.”

Farrar said Blasingame’s job was to look after the cattle and horses, the ranch’s fence and windmill. He said Blasingame displayed outstanding qualities for a cowboy of any age.

“It was exceptional for him at age 91, because he performed the job just as all other cowboys do,” Farrar said.

Blasingame married when he was 35. He lived during the week at the Campbell Creek Camp in Palo Duro Canyon, 9 miles south of the ranch headquarters. The camp had no electricity or telephone, and his wife lived in nearby Claude.