Week 22: Chuck Wagon History
Despite romantic depictions in the movies, the life of a cowboy was not easy. Hours in the saddle every day, tedium, and the constant threat of danger ahead made for a difficult living. One of the most difficult challenges for cowboys on early cattle drives was how to ensure they had food. The cowboys were responsible for their own food and water, and had to carry whatever they could fit in their saddlebag such as dried beef, corn fritters, or biscuits.
Demand for beef in ever growing eastern cities increased following the Civil War. Cattle ranchers from Texas, Oklahoma, and other southwestern states and territories needed a way to get their stock to railheads for shipment to slaughter houses. Ranchers hired cowboys to drive their herds the hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles to the train. Thus was born the cattle drive.
In 1866, cattleman Charles Goodnight confronted the logistical problem of food on the trail head on. Starting from an old army Studebaker supply wagon, Goodnight added a large pantry box to the back of it. The distinctive quality of the box was a large hinge door that would fold down flat to provide a work surface on which to prepare food. Inside the box, shelves and drawers held supplies and cooking equipment. In a box hanging below the wagon, which came to be called “the boot,” he stored cast iron skillets and dutch ovens. A large wooden water barrel was strapped to the side.
In addition to cooking supplies and food stuffs, the wagon held farrier and blacksmith tools for horseshoeing and making minor repairs to the wagon. Bedrolls and rain slickers for the cowboys were also stowed in the wagon. Personal items like guitars, books, and playing cards found a home on the wagon, as well. All of this material was covered with a large waterproof canvas, known as “the bonnet,” which was supported by wooden bows. The canvas could be removed and used as a fly to cover the food preparation area providing shade or cover during rain storms for the camp “cookie,” or chef. The final defining feature of the chuck wagon was known as the “possum belly,” which was an animal skin stretched below the bed of the wagon between the axles. During the day cowboys would collect fire wood and toss it into the possum belly for use in the cook fires that evening.
The invention of the chuck wagon revolutionized cattle drives. Now, instead of hauling all of their equipment with them cowboys could just carry what they would need for a day’s work. Everything else travelled on the chuck wagon. The cookie would drive the wagon ahead of the herd and set up camp. By the time the herd caught up and the cowboys straggled into camp there was hot food and coffee waiting for them, and they could look forward to another hot meal in the morning.
The cookie was often an older or retired cowboy, and cooking wasn’t necessarily his forte. They ran the full gamut of culinary ability from highly skilled to criminally incompetent. Despite common modern misconceptions cookies could be any race, ethnicity, or nationality. Documented cookies included Anglos, Mexicans, African Americans, Swedes, Germans, and Chinese.
The heyday of the trail drives occurred from the 1860s into the 1880s. Large ranches continued to use chuck wagons to feed their ranch hands in the field long afterwards. Locally, John Andersen used a chuck wagon, and later a chuck truck, into the 1930s on his large cattle ranch in Chandler.
To honor this great piece of Western history, and with a nod to the local connection, the Chandler Museum hosts an annual Chuck Wagon Cook-off event at Tumbleweed Ranch.