Bill Pickett

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Bill Pickett

Pickett's image on a handbill advertising the movie "The Bull-Dogger," released in 1922 by The Norman Film Manufacturing Company. Pickett was billed as "the world's colored champion" in "death-defying feats of courage and skill."
Born Willie M. Pickett
(1870-12-05)December 5, 1870
Jenks-Branch, Texas, U.S.
Died April 2, 1932(1932-04-02) (aged 61)
Ponca City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Occupation Rodeo performer

Willie M. "Bill" Pickett (December 5, 1870[1] - April 2, 1932[2]) was a cowboy and rodeo performer.

Personal life

Bill Pickett was born in the Jenks-Branch community of Travis County, Texas near Taylor, Texas in 1870. He was the second of 13 children born to Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former slave, and Mary "Janie" Gilbert. Pickett had four brothers and eight sisters. The family's ancestry was African-American, European-American and Cherokee Native American.

In 1890, Pickett married Maggie Turner, a former slave and daughter of a white southern plantation owner. The couple had nine children.

Career

He left school in the 5th grade to become a ranch hand, and soon he began to ride horses and watch the long horn steers of his native Texas.

He invented the technique of bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground. It was known among cattlemen that, with the help of a trained bulldog, a stray steer could be caught. Bill Pickett had seen this happen on many occasions. He also thought that if a bulldog could do this feat, so could he. Pickett practiced his stunt by riding hard and springing from his horse and wrestling the steer to the ground. Pickett's method for bulldogging was biting a cow on the lip and then falling backwards. This method eventually lost popularity as the sport morphed into the steer wrestling that is practiced in rodeos. He also helped cowboys with bulldogging.

He soon became known for his tricks and stunts at local country fairs. With his four brothers, he established The Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders Association. The name of Bill Pickett soon became synonymous with successful rodeos. He did his bull-dogging act, traveling about in Texas, Arizona, Wyoming and Oklahoma.

In 1905, Pickett joined the 101 Ranch Wild West Show that featured the likes of Buffalo Bill, Cowboy Bill Watts, Will Rogers, Tom Mix, Bee Ho Gray, and Zach and Lucille Mulhall. Pickett was soon a popular performer who toured around the world and appeared in early motion pictures. Pickett was shown in a movie created by Richard E. Norman. Pickett's ethnicity resulted in him not being able to appear at many rodeos. He often was forced to claim that he was of Comanche heritage in order to perform. In 1921, he appeared in the films The Bull-Dogger and The Crimson Skull.

In 1932, after he retired from the Wild West Shows, Bill Pickett was killed when he was kicked in the head by a wild bronco. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.[3]

Bill Pickett has a headstone beside the graves of the Miller brothers at the Cowboy Hill Cemetery, but he is buried near a 14-foot stone monument to the friendship of Ponca Tribal Chief White Eagle and the Miller Brothers on Monument Hill, also known as the White Eagle Monument to the locals, less than a quarter of a mile to the north-east of Marland in Noble County, Oklahoma.

References

  • Powell, Lee (Dec. 3-9, 2004). Bill Pickett: a rodeo pioneer. The Sports Page, p. 3.
  • Carnes, Mark C., Betz, Paul R., ed. "American National Biography". Oxford University Press.

Further reading

  1. ↑ Library of Congress name authority file
  2. ↑ "Bill Pickett". Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  3. ↑ "Rodeo Inductees". National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.  (Press "View Inductee Details" for a listing.)
  • Hanes, Bailey C. (1977). Bill Pickett, Bulldogger: The Biography of a Black Cowboy. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1391-X. OCLC 02632780. 
  • Johnson, Cecil (1994). Guts: Legendary Black Rodeo Cowboy Bill Pickett. Fort Worth, TX: Summit Group. ISBN 1-56530-162-5. OCLC 31374075. 

External links

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