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Allen Porter: Dayton Cowboy Comes Full Circle
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Porter brothers (Duane,
Allen, and Tom)
perform their specialty act.
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Short stories by David Satterlee
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| Life Will Get You in the End: Short Stories by David Satterlee |
Allen Porter: Dayton Cowboy Comes Full Circle
I had the privilege of an extended conversation and
interview with Allen Porter, one of the last “real cowboys.” He also has a
reputation as a trick-horse trainer and performer. He is an honored native son
of our small, rural, Iowa town. This is not fiction, just a partial record of a
“you couldn’t make this stuff up” life. I’m including it here just to share a
special story.
Article by David Satterlee
Published in the Dayton Review on October 26, 2011
Based on a personal interview.
Allen
Porter, born in 1918, still bears the broad shoulders and strong hands of a
sturdy working man. He also still wears cowboy boots and keeps the horns of a
longhorn steer mounted above his front door. Inside, pictures of the people and
horses that he has known and loved fill his home.
Most locals
know him on sight. Allen is honored annually at the Dayton Rodeo. He is the
legendary boyhood rope trick performer who, with friends Duane Vegors and Vern
Danielson, gave the Labor Day rodeo its start. He helped start the Wranglers
Club in 1947 and has made his life as a horseman.
Allen didn’t
stay in the area his whole life. He spent years as a cowboy in New Mexico, a
ranch hand in Texas, and he managed his own ranch operation in Arkansas. Coming
back to Dayton, he made a home with his wife, Esther and has continued to be
active in the community.
Allen remembers:
“The rodeo has kind of been my life. The rodeo started from nothing. I did a
lot of trick roping in my early days. I did trick roping with my high school
horse. I didn’t follow the rodeos, but I did trick roping in South Dakota and
Iowa, New Mexico, West Texas, and Arkansas during my early days. I’d get
$25.00 a show and, you know, in those days that wasn’t too bad.”
$25.00 a show and, you know, in those days that wasn’t too bad.”
“This
picture shows me in ‘41 with my friend Vern Danielson on the right. He rode a
palomino stud called Captain. We were riding a 100 mile trail ride in Des
Moines. I broke these two horses for a farmer here in town who had a lot of
horses. Vern called a bunch of us together in ’41 and we formed the Wranglers
Club. It’s still going on and it’s a very popular saddle club. We had a little
show going on at the farm. I was living in Lehigh and farming at the time. From
there on Vern was in the service.
“This
picture shows our specialty act of the day. This is myself on the bottom left,
my brother Tom on the right, and my brother Duane standing on our shoulders.
We’ve all got ropes going at the same time.
“Well, we
had a meeting one day and I told the people about Sidney Iowa, which had a big
rodeo. They had a horse that was bucking everybody off. And so, one Sunday
afternoon they took him out in the field and they all gathered ‘round to see
who could ride the sucker. And that’s how Sidney started and so our little show
started from this.
“We had the
show out on the farm for two years and then we went to the golf course and
borrowed a picket fence from the county. We sawed some timber up and made some
portable bucking chutes. My dad furnished about 15 steers and Bill Vegors
furnished about 15 and we had a steer riding. And then the next year I think we
had one bucking horse.
“And then I
went to New Mexico and spent 14 years cowboying before I came back. But anyway,
the town took a hold of it and everybody in the community worked and promoted
this rodeo; it’s a community project and everybody has helped to keep it going.
“This is my
little Chip horse; Chipo I call him. This is the “Trails End” pose. He would
stand that way, with all four feet together and his head down, until I asked
him to come up. It took forever to get him to do this when I was on his back.
He would do it when I was on the ground but he couldn’t get it through his head
to scooch up that way when I was on his back. But I finally taught him a cue so
that it would work. There’s nothing you can’t do with a horse. You take time,
you can teach a horse anything.
“I was
sitting down at the state fair one day and a guy was advertising Boyt Harness.
He had a little bitty Shetland pony. The little bittyish damn pony I’d ever
seen — with a harness on him. And he’s sitting there and you’d ask that horse
“What’s five times five?” and he’d paw 25. I stayed sitting there for a
half-hour watching him to see how he cued that pony. I wanted to know because I
was working on trick horses. He said, “Son, you’ll never catch me.” He said,
“You’re so damn interested, if you promise not to tell the crowd here while I’m
here, I’ll tell you. You watch and when I do this way he’ll start pawing and
when I want him to stop I just make a little sniff.” But anyway, if you get a
horse’s attention you can teach him anything.
“We had six
of the Budweiser Clydesdales here at the Rodeo one time. They come around, back
into the bucking chutes. They couldn’t leave them out front; they’d stop
traffic. To swing six horses that way, they had to be well broke, you know.
“Back in
1982, we were in court in Fort Dodge, and my lawyer says – of course, he knew I
was about half crazy anyway – “Al, if you’ve got something to do for about a
half hour, we’ve got some paperwork to do and you come on back.” I didn’t come
back for a half hour. He said, “We’ve been waiting on you. Where’ve you been?”
I said, “I’ve been down on Main Street looking at the draft horses.” They said
“Yeah; ” they knew I was crazy then. I said, “Yeah;” you fellows doubt my word,
but look out that window.” There were six of those Budweiser animals down
there.
“Oh, they
were beautiful big animals, you know, with feet that big around. I was a
farrier for about 30 years; I put shoes and shod horses for the public, so
those enormous animals interested me.”
Allen tells
a good story. And, as he talks, his voice and eyes sparkle with enthusiasm. He
acknowledges that sometimes life can throw you some real trouble and pain, but
the good memories, like good friends and good horses, stand by you to see you
through.
He hands me
two more pictures. One catches him in mid-air with a rope circling his body
top, front, dirt, and back. He can tell that I’m squinting to make out the
details of his face. “Was this when you were in your 70s?” I ask. “Yeah, I
didn’t start getting old until about ten years ago.”
The other
picture shows him tossing a loop incredibly high in the air. Allen, in his
chair, is positively beaming with pride. “I set the camera on a timer and took
the picture myself. Somehow it caught the rope just at the very top. It worked
out just right. It’s the damdest thing.”
Allen had a lot of pictures of horses
on his walls and in his photo albums. Several weeks after this feature article
was published in the local newspaper, we met again. During our conversation, he
mentioned that he had started a book called “Horses I Have Known,” and asked me if I might be interested in
helping him to finish it. I came back and told him that I was.
Shortly after that, I had a stroke,
which put me off my feed for the better part of a year. Then, Allen fell off
the wagon (really, I mean that literally) at the Labor Day Rodeo Parade. He got
a concussion, I think, and spent some time in the local nursing home,
recovering.
It doesn’t look like Allen and I are
likely to revive the project. I’m really sorry about that. Allen loves horses
with a passion that needs to be shared.
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