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GLINES & GEORGE (photographers)
A panoramic group portrait photograph, titled in the negative '101 RANCH / REAL WILD WEST SHOW / Opening Date April 8th Season 1911 / BOSTON ARENA'
Boston, Mass.: Glines & George, 1911. Original photograph, 6 1/2 x 46 inches (six old thumb-tack pinholes).
A fascinating image providing a link between the reality of Old West and the fantasy of the Hollywood Wild West
A highly evocative image taken just before the start of the 8th touring season of 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show.
"The number of talented personalities that the legitimate stage and vaudeville gave to early film was easily matched by the Miller Brother's 101 Ranch. The 101 was a training ground and showcase for cowboys, cowgirls, Indians and an active wellspring that preserved the old West. [alumni included: Will Rogers (who only passed through, but remained a good friend of the Millers), cowboy/stuntman Tom Mix, Black cowboy star Bill Pickett, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones, Yakima Canutt, Ken Maynard and Jack Hoxie. Native American performers who left the ranch for the movies included William Eagleshirt, Chief Standing Bear and Charles Stevens (Geronimo's grandson)]. Most folks have heard of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. However, most haven't heard of the Miller brothers (Joe, Zach and George) and their 101 Ranch. The working ranch, founded in 1893 by their father Colonel George Washington Miller, was the eventual springboard for the Millers touring Wild West Shows which debuted in the fall of 1905. The Miller's shows were just as exciting and spectacular as Cody's. Heck, even Buffalo Bill himself lent his presence to the 101 pageantry joining up with the ranch in 1916, the year before his death.
Touring was a competitive business and Millers took note of all the different Western Shows in the U.S. and abroad, making sure their 101, at least on the surface, remained the cream of the crop. The Millers weren't snobs. It didn't matter what a prospective employee's background was as long as they worked hard:
'Although the Millers insisted on having skilled hire hands, they were not as selective about the backgrounds of the people they hired. They could not afford to be. A few of those who showed up at the ranch looking for jobs as working cowboys or show performers sported checkered pasts. That never stopped the Millers from hiring anyone, including cold-blooded killers and thieves. Neither Joe Miller, a convicted felon, nor his brothers ever forgot that they and their family, including their father, had occasionally crossed the line of legality. Sometimes, if good help was short, the Millers even put convicts to work on the ranch.
Of the hundreds of men and women who at one time worked for the Millers - as common laborers, cooks, roustabouts, cowhands, animal trainers, or entertainers - many were veterans of frontier life. Some of them remained with the 101 for their entire careers, but others did not last until the first paycheck.' [Michael Wallis, The Real Wild West, St. Martin's Press 1999]
The 101 Ranch was more than just a touring show. It had been a real working ranch (and remained so) before the 101 re-enacted the old West in the same vein as a travelling circus. Filmmaking became a part of the business in 1911 when they stared working with Thomas Ince and the New York Motion Picture Co.'s Bison Studio unit. This partnership between the Millers and the NYMP was called Bison 101. Like the travelling shows, the competition in filmmaking was cutthroat. For example, Carl Laemmle's Universal highly coveted and, after a fierce struggle, finally acquired the 101 Ranch land in Southern California to film their Westerns.
When the Hollywood stars of the 10s and 20s witnessed the fantastic feats of the cowboy-stuntmen, they wanted their authenticity in their pictures - and they got them. The cowboys that punched cows on the 101 eventually appeared in films shot in the corrals, pastures and chaparral on the spread that was the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma."
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#6574 $1,750.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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