Legendary Wild Horses

The topic of wild horses comes up occasionally in North Dakota. They represent an endearing model of wildness and freedom that most of us aspire to experience at times. You can see them running with manes and tails flying in the breeze in the Badlands, and most people look for them when driving through the park. Their ongoing presence became in doubt a couple of years ago when the park management said the horses were livestock not native to the North Dakota badlands, and thereby proposed they be removed.  

Vocal backers cried out with overwhelming support of the horses, but their presence in the park remained in doubt. The common sense approach to the topic decided a managed number of horses would be okay. That thinking recently reached the North Dakota Legislature when they passed a resolution urging the U.S. Congress to pass legislation protecting the herd. From that it is hoped that permanent legislation will be passed to protect the herd.

It would be fun to consider first beginnings of these horses. To do so we’ve got to go back about four million years ago to when horses first evolved on this continent. A study participated in by about 80 scholars and scientists at Smithsonian Institution offer that statistic but go on to state the fossil record of them disappeared about 10,000 years ago. The Spanish reintroduced them in 1519 when Cortez arrived. That is the event most of us remember from our school texts.

Some of the horses broke free and did very nicely on their own while running untethered. They are adaptable to incredibly harsh and extreme conditions of drought, cold, and heat. Native tribes quickly saw the value of a horse and began breeding them, trading them, and watching them spread northward until they arrived in our area.

Those horses fit right into the nomadic lifestyle of some of the tribes, including those in what is now North Dakota. Horses changed methods of hunting and warfare, modes of travel, lifestyles, and standards of wealth and prestige.

Common names for wild horses such as mustang or bronco attach to objects in our language. Ford Motor Company took both for models of their vehicles. I wanted a Mustang that sold for $2300 new when I graduated from college in 1964. But when I was ready to buy contract negotiations between Ford and the UAW broke down. It was thirty days before they settled. About 500,000 vehicle sales were lost, and mine was one of them. I ended up with a plain 1962 Ford Galaxy. To get a Mustang, I married a girl who had one. A highly successful warplane called a P51 Mustang appeared in 1943. I don’t know if the term cayuse has been used anywhere. 

We can’t neglect how wild horses began appearing in literature and became featured in many short stories, books, and films. One author, David Phillips, in his book Wild Horse Country tracked the introduction of them in stories. He started with the work of Washington Irving who gained fame writing The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. One night while camped out on the prairie he joined a group of men sitting around a campfire who talked of a legendary White Stallion.  They all seemed to have knowledge of him. Irving grew interested and began taking notes which are credited with being the first-ever written account of the myth of the mustang. 

Legends grew. Mustang hair became white like spun silk, glowed like moonlight, and was always seen on the horizon tossing his head in defiance. The legend kept growing and added to. Herman Melville even picked up on it with the legendary white whale Moby Dick that could not be caught. He took his inspiration from stories of the horses that appeared in various publications of the time. 

Zane Grey wrote dozens of pulp novels which included the wild horses and molded them into the American legend which gave birth to the Lone Ranger and his horse Silver. They first appeared in 1933 as a radio show in Chicago. J. Frank Dobie included horse stories into his work after talking to old-timers who had been early day cowboys. Owen Wister’s The Virginian still sells. The Virginian rode a mustang. With all the books Louis L’Amour  has sold there must surely be an untamed mustang in some of them.

Ten years ago I attended a wild horse sale in Wishek when the Theodore Roosevelt Park culled and downsized the herd. Interest ran so high that a person needed to get to the sale ring early to get a seat. Some didn’t and had to go to city hall where a television feed provided the action. Most of us in attendance weren’t interested in buying, but felt drawn there to experience something of their myth and legend instilled through stories. I suspect future events like that will continue drawing crowds.