Authors Find Surprises in Genuine Cowboy Couture

SOUTH PASS CITY, Wyo. —  Real cowboys did not wear spangles on the windy prairie. But some wore pink underwear.

Before central heating, “Union Suits” were important. The long underwear was available in white, gray, ecru, light blue, and, finally, in 1909, pink.

Cowboys also preferred wool trousers before Levis, wore corduroy hunting caps when they weren’t wearing Stetsons and donned curly wool chaps that made them look more like animals than herders.

Such details can be found in “I See By Your Outfit,” a book that aims to separate fiction from fact about early cowboys who roamed Wyoming.

The authors, Tom Lindmier and Steve Mount, spent seven years interviewing relatives of cowboys and researching diaries, museum exhibits, gritty photographs and century-old mail-order catalogs.

They came away with a closetful of contradictions to the Hollywood image. Floppy hats before 10-gallon hats. Hippie-length hair and goatees. “Rodeo Booger Reds,” a would-be competitor with Levi Strauss.

The book, in its third printing in paperback, has sold 6,000 copies.

Lindmier is somewhat surprised by the fuss. As a historian, he still receives late-night calls from history enthusiasts asking for advice on authentic clothing.

He also remembers the 1970s “thread counters,” demanding cowboy authenticity in everything they wear, down to the stitching. “In many ways, they can’t accept what’s going on in the modern world and they’re trying to find it in a bygone era,” Lindmier says.

The book also attracts enthusiasts who stage shooting competitions and dress in authentic representations of their favorite cowboys. The participants, mostly men, can get picky, says John Oliver, president of the local chapter of the Wyoming Single-Shooters Assn.

“They don’t want the John Wayne or Roy Rogers look. They want it the way it was,” he says. “The book has been real good because there were some weird styles in those days.”

Cowboys began to capture the American imagination during the immense cattle drives north from Texas, starting after the Civil War in the 1860s. But the romantic period of the open range began to wane as fences went up and homesteaders moved in.

But the cowboy never escaped the national imagination, as scores of dime novels, movies and television shows can attest. The cowboy uniform has been widely disputed, partly because of different regional styles and partly because the cowboy era lasted for barely a generation.

Well illustrated and detailed, the book was originally driven by a dispute over clothing. Twelve years ago, a group of costumed western enthusiasts walked out on Lindmier and Mount during a presentation in a Los Angeles museum about cowboy life. The walkout left the two questioning their historical knowledge.

Lindmier found himself as fervent about the issue as those who sometimes get on his nerves. “My first reaction was to throw them all outside, take them out and trash them,” he recalls.

He had reason to feel angry. Both Mount and Lindmier grew up in Wyoming and come from ranching backgrounds. Both have a fondness for western history--Mount as an enthusiast, Lindmier as a history major from the University of Wyoming.

Mount’s ancestors came west as part of a Mormon handcart company in 1851. He is a sixth-generation Wyomingite whose grandfather homesteaded in Star Valley.

Lindmier manages a historical site in the town of South Pass, population 7, in western Wyoming. His wife, Connie, is a costume designer whose clothing has been featured in numerous western films. “If it is not correct for the period, we just won’t do it,” she says.

Though focused on Wyoming, the book addresses the rest of the northern Plains--Montana, northern Colorado and parts of North Dakota and South Dakota. Published by High Plains Press, it also focuses on 1870 and 1928, just before the Great Depression.

Nancy Curtis publishes from headquarters on an old family ranch in Glendo. She says European enthusiasts have sent her pictures of themselves dressed in authentic cowboy clothing.

The European interest perplexes Curtis. “I guess some people want to look as much as they can like Billy the Kid,” she says.

John Langellier, former executive staff member of the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Los Angeles, recommends the book as an antidote to Hollywood.

“Film is not history; film is entertainment. . . . And oftentimes the artistic vision of the filmmaker is at odds with creating that reality,” he says.

“Then again,” he adds, “it’s not a history lesson that has been imparted. Maybe the real clothing would just be too off the wall.”

Ironically, real cowboys grew more fanciful as Hollywood took over the fading range. Catalogs and pictures from the early 1900s began to show tooled leather and red and silver stars as extra flourish for a cowboy hat.

“It was surprising to see the cowboys take on that persona,” Mount says. “Even today, they like to think of themselves as individualists.”