For 90 years, Western Horseman has provided the most trusted and authentic content in the Western world.
From the beginning, we have celebrated authenticity, cowboy spirit and the Western way of life. As a nod to the magazine’s start, we are sharing a written piece on the first page of the very first issue.
The art of horsemanship is as old as the civilized human race. Almost coincident with the dawn of written history, our guide for the definition of civilization, man has been mounted on a horse. Prior to that time he was no further advanced than out American Indians, whom, it is well known, made no particular strides toward civilization until they adopted the use of horses. Dogs had been the transportation of the Indians, and cattle that of the Aryans of Europe, which had tended to localize and stagnate the human tribes to such an extent that nations might grow up within a few miles of each other and still be unaware of each other’s existence. Such was the case of the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru.
With the rapid advancement of transportation in the last twenty-five years Americans have almost forgotten the qualities of horseflesh. Only a few of the older families in our country whose traditions have followed the cattle business have remained staunch adherents of the horse, both as a means of transportation and a valuable tool in the execution of work. In this industry the horse will always be indispensable.
And as the cattlemen have stuck with their horses while city dwellers have gone on to more rapid forms of travel, these same city dwellers have glanced back from time to time and been thrilled and pleased to see one group of people with their feet still in the stirrups. In recent years this thrill had recurred so often that certain of them have left the crowded pavements occasionally, straddled a good old horse, and, strange as it seems, many for the first time in their lives, to discover that they have born into them a love for horses.
This love for horses is not strange in any normal human. It is his heritage, given him through the generations by other people whom he even knows not of; people whose blood flows in his veins; people who conquered, and invaded, and explored, and looked beyond the next hill from the back of a good horse. We may fly, or sail, or glide over the roads on pneumatic tires with more comfort, but the love for good horseflesh will never be stamped out of humans while they still have red blood in their veins. This is not a prophecy, but a fact.
This article was originally published in the January 1936 issue of Western Horseman.
My Grandfather, Dad and Myself have all read Western Horseman for years. I’m now 67 and still reading the magazine I have always Loved it.