"Spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle"

ARTICLE BY NAT MCKELVEY WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY TAD NICHOLS In Arizona, they tell the story of the dude who, suddenly rounding the corner of the bunkhouse, stumbled on an old-time cowpoke digging in the ground. Beside the puncher lay a glittering, brand new pair of spurs.

"What are you doing," asked the curious tenderfoot.

Turning slowly, his weather-beaten face a mask unmarked by the annoyance he felt, the pioneer cowboy responded.

"Well," he drawled, "tain't none of yore business, but I'll tell you anyhow. I'm a-buryin' these here hooks."

"You're burying the spurs," stammered the dude.

"What for?"

"What for!" The old-timer sighed in resignation, adding, "I'm buryin' 'em so's I kin get some of this dadblamed newness rusted off 'em. That's what for!"

To the cowboy, the spur is a vital tool. To the old-time cowboy, utility took precedence over ornamentation. In fact, he considered the gleam and polish of a new pair of spurs as "sissy," the mark of the tenderfoot.

Before dude ranching made ornamental spurs respectable, the cowboy looked entirely for a goad that would help him manage his bronc under adverse conditions. The spur supplies the extra urge that gets horse and rider over broken, rugged terrain. During roping. a quick jab of the spurs will prevent a cowpony from pulling up too quickly, spoiling the throw. For quick starts and stops, the spur provides a signal that cannot be misunderstood.

Yet a well trained cowhorse seldom feels the goad. He knows the threat of it and replies automatically to a movement of the spurred heel toward his flank. He knows instinctively that the genuine cowboy hates the man who mutilates a bronc by brutal or inexperienced spurring.

No untutored horseman should ever don spurs for his ride. A sudden, unintended prod might send a pony to his hind legs, then off on a wild, panic-inspired run.

Nothing gives the real cowboy more amusement, ting-ed with contempt, than the sight of a dude sporting a pair of spurs mounted upside down. Every cowhand knows that spurs are worn with the shank curving downward. However, the cowboy may not know that his spurs were created by other than a member of his own bronc busting fraternity.

Before Julius Caesar, Romans invented the first spur. By the Middle Ages, knights adopted the spur as their own badge, a sign of freedom, for the man who traveled on foot was lowly. Modern cowboys share this feeling.

Knights wore plain-tipped spurs until the Thirteenth century when spur makers added stars or rosettes to the shank ends. In the Fifteenth century, wheeled or rowel-led spurs appeared, and in 1768, Guermiehe, Equerry to His Majesty Louis XIV, created the forerunner of the present cowboy spur.

Waggishly, cowboys may call their spurs "gads, gut-hooks, rib wrenches, rib lancers, or pet-makers." Whatever he calls it, the cowhand's spur has four parts-frame, rowel, leather, and chains.

Spur leather fits over the instep, while spur chains pass under it. Spurs that "jingle, jangle, jingle" are true to cowboy character and tradition. To make that "here comes a riding man" music, the waddy may unloose one of the two instep chains, letting it drag. If this doesn't satisfy him, he may, particularly on lonely night herd, add small, pear-shaped metal pieces called "danglers." These he affixes to the shank of the rowel. As he rides around his gather, with only the stars and moon for company, the friendly jingle of the danglers cheers him.

PAGE THIRTY OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FOR OCTOBER, 1947 Big-roweled Chilean spurs, an old Latin American design. The rowels with close points are not nearly as vicious as they look.

Two models (below) of modern spurs, copper mounted. Top spur has a buck book, five-pointed rowel. Popular with many bronc riders.

Two spur styles popular a few decades ago are shown above. The big goosenecked spur with pearl buttons was once very popular.

A Crescent spur (below), familiarly called "Moonshine Special." Note pearl buttons as leather fasteners. Made of stainless steel.

Blued spur (below) popular between 1915-20, is still made today. Two large silver conchas ornament shank. Spur miniature is shown.

Famous Pistol Packin' Mama spurs used in El Paso rodeo few seasons ago. Shanks, miniature six-guns, are overlaid with copper, silver.

Spurs are tools in trade for the cowboy. Many are true collectors' items for they represent skilled craftsmanship and fine design.

The story of spurs goes back many centuries. Knights of olden days used spurs as badges, setting themselves above the man on foot.

Mistakenly, newcomers to the West often feel that big-roweled cowboy spurs are cruel. Actually, the spur with the large, multi-pointed blunt rowel can do no damage to a horse. But spurs with small, thin rowels with few points slit a horse's hide, pick it and tear it to ribbons. The big spur glides smoothly over.

Spur rowels are many, reflecting variations in cowboy requirements and personality. The wagon-wheel rowel, six inches long, appears like the spokes in a wagon wheel. Daisy petals inspired the flower rowel while the sunset rowel looks like a burst of light rays when the sun drops westward to bed.

The goose-necked spur, appearing like the neck of its namesake, sometimes has a head at the end. The open mouth holds the rowel. But for sheer whimsey, consider the gal-leg. The shank of this one does credit to the nether members of a pin-up girl.

Bronc busters' spurs sport a device called the "buck hook." Blunt, upcurved from the frame behind the heel, the buck-hook, outlawed in rodeo riding, may be jammed into the saddle cinch, welding the rider to his mount.

Spur styles change, the life of a model seldom exceeding nine years. An exception is the huge Chihuahua as it is popularly though incorrectly called. Actually made in Oaxaca, Mexico not Chihuahua this spur has been a top seller for twenty years.

From 1915 to 1920, blued spurs were the rage. The emphasis shifted, between 1918 and 1925, to the goose necked persuader. Nowadays, copper and silver mounted models are most popular.

Expansive in everything, Texas is also the greatest buyer of spurs in America. Spur, Texas, took its name from the goad and the cowboys who lived there helped create the vocabulary surrounding the spur and its uses.

A puncher "shoving in the steel" is also "gigging"

his bronc. If he "throws steel," he is over-spurring, too energetic in his "gaffing and reefing." "Combing" means spurring to make a horse buck while a cowpoke who "curries a horse out," rakes him from shoulders to flanks.

Next to Texans, Californians buy the most spurs, demanding jeweled, inlaid jobs for which they will pay fabulous prices. Up North in Montana, where lives Clyde Akin, a foremost spur collector, cowpokes favor a heavy goad with buck hook. Arizonans like the same kind. As a lad, Clyde Akin became fascinated by cowboy prods. Today, he has 135 pairs, from every part of the West, from Mexico, Germany and Japan. Forty years ago, a rancher offered a $50 reward for a missing spur. Today, Akin owns both the lost spur and its mate, held hopefully by the old timer against the day when someone would claim his reward. No one ever did. Curiously, each spur in the pair came to Akin from persons living hundreds of miles apart.

Spur making is big business these days. Factories in Texas, Colorado, and the east turn out models ranging in price from $5 to $100 a pair.

The glamor of American cowboy spurs has even captivated the staid Britisher. An imposing collection of western spurs hangs in the Tower of London. Others are cherished private mementoes of that day in 1930 when tophands from Arizona, Texas, California and other western states busted broncs for King George V.

Wherever the laughing, swashbuckling busters paraded their fancy trappings, delighted Englishmen begged for spurs. When the troupe sailed for home and the open range, the boys were slick-heeled as a newborn infant.

There is something irresistible about a fancy "petmaker." Maybe that is why the old-timer wanted his hooks rusty and nicked to discourage the souvenir hunter. Of a sudden, spurs have become art objects.