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Earl W. Bascom

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Earl W. Bascom (June_19, 1906 - August_28, 1995) was an American painter and sculptor, raised in Canada, who portrayed his own experiences cowboying and rodeoing across the American and Canadian West.

Childhood

Bascom was born in a sod-roofed log cabin on the Bascom 101 Ranch in Vernal, Utah. Bascom's father, John W. Bascom, had been a deputy sheriff in Utah, who chased Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch Gang. Both sets of Earl's grandparents (Joel A. Bascom and C.F.B. Lybbert) were Mormon pioneers, ranchers and frontier lawmen.

Earl Bascom's paternal ancestrial background is a colorful aray of nationalities and ethnicities including Quaker, French Basque and Huguenots, as well as an American Colonial Governor, John Webster, and a Revolutionary War soldier, Oliver Greene.[1] His maternal family is of Norwegian, Danish, Dutch and German ancestry.[2] As a child growing up, he was sometimes affectionately addressed by his British-born aunts as "Lord Bascom - King of the Canadian Cowboys," as he was a descendant of European Royalty back to Charlemagne.[citation needed]

While Bascom was still a child his family moved to the Bascom Bar-B-3 Ranch in Alberta, Canada. He quit school while in grade three to work on the Hyssop 5H Ranch. Although he was soon marched back to school by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Earl was reprieved to get the job of driving an old stagecoach each day to the surrounding ranches transporting fellow students to and from school.[citation needed]

Cowboy of Cowboy Artists

Bascom was known as the Cowboy of Cowboy Artists due to his wide range of western experiences as a professional bronc buster, cowpuncher, trail driver, blacksmith, freighter, wolf hunter, wild horse chaser, rodeo champion, cattle rancher, dude wrangler, and Hollywood actor. Bascom was among the last of those who experienced the Old West before the end of free-range ranching. Bascom reminisced

I worked for some of the big open-range outfits from Purple Springs to the Sweetgrass Hills and Kicking Horse Creek to the Milk River Ridge and the Canadian Rockies. On one roundup some 7,000 horses were gathered in one bunch a mile wide. And the Knight Ranch dipped 18,000 head of cattle. What a sight to see. The sight, the sounds, the smell I can still remember.[citation needed]

Professional Cowboy

For Earl Bascom, cowboy life was his life. "The life of a cowboy and the West, I know," he stated. Bascom worked on some of the largest horse and cattle ranches in the United States and Canada - ranches that ran thousands of cattle on a million acres (4000 km²) of land. He broke and trained hundreds of horses. He worked on ranches where he chased and gathered horses, cows and even donkeys in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Mississippi, Washington, California and Canada. He worked on cattle drives out of the Rockies and horse drives through the Teton Mountains. He took part on large roundups of horses and cattle, and brandings. He made saddles and stirrups, quirts, chaps, spurs, bridles and bits, ropes and hackamores, and even patched his own boots.

Rodeo Rider

Earl Bascom rodeoed from 1916 to 1940 and had memberships in the Cowboys Turtle Association, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the Canadian Rodeo Cowboys Association (now the Canadian Pro Rodeo Association)and the National Police Rodeo Association. An all-around rodeo champion working four events - bull riding, saddle bronc riding, bareback riding and steer decorating or steer wrestling - he has been inducted into several rodeo Halls of Fame in Canada and the United States. He gained international acclaim for his rodeo equipment inventions and designs.[citation needed]

Rodeo Innovations

Earl Bascom is known as an innovator and designer of rodeo equipment and rodeo gear. His inventions include:

  • first side-delivery bucking chute (1916), later redesigned as the reverse-opening side-delivery bucking chute (1919) (in conjunction with brothers Raymond, Melvin and Weldon and father John)
  • first hornless bronc saddle (1922)
  • first one-hand bareback rigging (1924)
  • first high-cut rodeo chaps (1926)
  • rodeo exerciser (1928)
  • first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights (1935, Columbia, Mississippi)
  • first permanent rodeo arena with bucking chutes and grandstands in the state of Mississippi (1936).

Mississippi Rodeo

Mixed in during his college years, Earl, along with his brother Weldon, produced the first rodeos in Columbia, Mississippi in 1935, 1936 and 1937, while they both worked for Hickman's B Bar H Ranch near Arm, Mississippi. Ranch owner Sam Hickman financed their rodeos.

Marriage

Both Earl and Weldon married young ladies they met during their time in Mississippi. In 1937 Weldon married Rose Flynt, who was part Cherokee and Choctaw. Earl married Nadine Diffey in 1939, who was part Creek and Catawba. They each raised five children.

Rodeo Clown

Besides being a serious minded rodeo contestant, Earl tried his hand as a rodeo clown and rodeo bullfighter during his rodeo career. Just after his 89th birthday, Earl was honored as the oldest living rodeo clown in the world.[citation needed]

Artist Training

Jim Thorpe's Influence

While working for the Nilsson Rafter-E-N Ranch, Earl happened to read a story in a western magazine about Native American Jim Thorpe. Thorpe was working as a horse wrangler, but got fired. The camp cook gave him some advice - go to school. Thorpe took that advice, went to school, excelled in sports and became an Olympic champion.[citation needed]

Jim Thorpe’s life touched Earl Bascom’s. "I felt like I had walked in his boots," Earl said. "Like Jim Thorpe, cowboy life was the only life that I knew. But what about my art, what about art school?"

Wanting to be an artist since childhood, Earl Bascom filled the pages of his school books in the one-room school house he attended with cowboy scenes. Earl Bascom’s desire to be a cowboy artist was greatly enhanced after seeing art works of the two great icons of western art, Charles M. Russell and Frederic S. Remington - both cousins to Earl’s father (Remington and Russell were both related to Bascom through their mothers, Clarissa Bascom Sackrider Remington and Mary Elizabeth Mead Russell, respectively). Charles Russell was on the Knight Ranch when Earl was working there, and had drawn a sketch on the bunkhouse wall and also finished a large oil painting of Raymond Knight on his favorite mount, Blue Bird, roping a steer. [citation needed]

Correspondence Art Course

Earl only completed one full year of school and never finished high school, but he never lost his desire to be an artist. He subscribed to a correspondence art course wherein both Russell and Remington gave instructions on their drawing techniques. "Through those art lessons these two masters of western art were my first real art teachers," Earl recalled. "In fact the only instructions I ever had in western art were from Remington and Russell." [citation needed]

College Art Training

Even though he had no high school diploma the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah accepted him as a student in the fall of 1933. “There I was a 27 years old college freshman who hadn’t been to school in years,” Earl recalled. “I felt like a wild horse in a pen.” But his persistence was tough, taking every art course the college offered. He studied painting and drawing under professors E.H. Eastmond and B.F. Larsen, and sculpture under Torlief Knaphus.


Hollywood

After graduating from college, Earl and his wife moved to California. Retiring from rodeo, he pursued his art career and ranched. He worked a bit in the movie industry with his brother Weldon Bascom in the Hollywood western, "Lawless Rider" starring Weldon's wife Texas Rose Bascom. Later Earl did TV commercials with Roy Rogers and was in the documentary "Take Willy With You." When the Roy Rogers Riding Stables opened up in Apple Valley, California, Earl and his youngest son John worked there wrangling horses and driving the hay wagon.

International Artist

Earl Bascom became internationally known as a cowboy artist and sculptor. His art has been exhibited in the United States, Canada and Europe. He was honored by the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Artists Association as the first rodeo cowboy to become a professional cowboy artist and sculptor. He was the first cowboy artist to be honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of London, England. In the summer of 2005, the Earl W. Bascom Memorial Rodeo was held in Berlin, Germany by the European Rodeo Cowboys Association in honor of his world-wide influence upon the sport of rodeo.

Family of Artists

Famous artists related by family bloodline to Earl Bascom include:

Later Years

Always one who had deep thoughts and religious leanings, Earl Bascom was ordained a Latter-day Saints Bishop later in life. As the late cowboy celebrity Roy Rogers, who worked with Earl Bascom in TV commercials and was a collector of Bascom art, once said, “Earl Bascom is a walking book of history. His knowledge of the Old West was acquired the old fashioned way – he was born and raised in it.”

Bascom died at the age of 89 on his ranch in Victorville, California, August 28, 1995.

Philosophy

A motivating factor that pushed Earl Bascom to excell in sports or fine art was the philosophy he expressed in these words: "If you want to be a champion bull rider, you have to ride the toughest bull."

Lifetime Honors

Rodeo Championships

Honorary Titles

Tributes

  • Congressional Record July 9, 1985, "Earl Bascom - An American Hero"
  • Bascom Brothers - 50 Year Anniversary Rodeo, Columbia, Mississippi 1985
  • Earl W. Bascom Memorial Rodeo 2005, Berlin, Germany
  • Earl Bascom All-Around Champion Award, Dillon Rodeo, Montana
  • Earl W. Bascom All-Around Champion Award, Hesperia Rodeo, California
  • Earl W. Bascom Bareback Champion Award, Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo, Vernal, Utah
  • Earl w. Bascom - Utah Heritage Award, Days of '47 Rodeo, Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Earl W. Bascom - Lethbridge Heritage Award, Whoop-Up Days Pro Rodeo, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
  • Earl Bascom Saddle Bronc Rookie Award, National High School Finals Rodeo
  • Earl Bascom Bareback Rookie Award, National High School Finals Rodeo

Legacy

  • Honored for the developement of the first side-delivery rodeo chute
  • Honored as the designer and maker of rodeo's first hornless bronc saddle
  • Honored as the designer and maker of rodeo's first one-hand bareback rigging
  • Honored for producing the first outdoor night rodeo held under electric lights
  • Honored for pioneering the sport of rodeo on Mississippi
  • Honored as the designer and supervisor of construction of Mississippi's first permanent rodeo arena and grandstands
  • Honored as the first collegiate rodeo cowboy to graduate from Brigham Young University
  • Honored as the world's oldest living rodeo clown in 1995
  • Honored as the first rodeo cowboy to become a professional artist and sculptor
  • Honored as one of the world's most famous excogitators and inventors of all time

Hall of Fame Honors

  • Canadian Rodeo Hall of Fame
  • Utah Sports Hall of Fame
  • Raymond Alberta Sports Hall of Fame
  • Marion County Mississippi Cattleman's Hall of Fame
  • Cowboy Memorial Museum
  • United States Sports Academy Walk of Fame
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London
  • California Rodeo Hall of Fame

See also

Sources

  • Who's Who in American Art
  • Who's Who in Western Writers
  • Who's Who in California
  • Who's Who in the West
  • Who's Who in America
  • Who's Who in the World


Footnotes

  1. ^ "ancestors Herodius Long was a Quaker, Gilbertus Bask'ome was a French Basque nobleman and Robert Bascom was a Huguenot"
  2. ^ "Earl's maternal grandmother, Antoinette Marie Olsen Lybbert, was from Norway; his maternal grandfather, C.F.B. Lybbert, was from Denmark but was half German and part Dutch ancestry"

References

  • Brigham Young University "Banyan" (1934)
  • Brigham Young University "Banyan" (1940)
  • J.O. Hicken "Raymond Roundup 1902 - 1967" (1967)
  • Van Lybbert "C.F.B. Lybbert and Family History" (1975)
  • Cardston Historical Society "Chief Mountain Country" (1978)
  • Stirling Sunset Society "Stirling History" (1981)
  • Lyle Lybbert "Memories I Could Do Without - and Other Short Stories" (1983)
  • Kristina Fredriksson "American Rodeo - From Buffalo Bill to Big Business" (1985)
  • Lela Nickell Christian "Elias Willard Williams, Jr. and Ida Jane Bascom and Their Posterity" (1988)
  • Sunnyside Historical Society "Sunnyside Area History, Royal View and Hyssop" (1988)
  • Leonard Bloom "Journal of the Societ of Basques in America" (1993)
  • Bob Jordan "Rodeo History and Legends" (1993)
  • Lawrence Turner "Settlers, Sugar and Stampedes: Raymond Remembered" (1993)
  • Gail Woerner "Fearless Funnymen: The History of the Rodeo Clown" (1994)
  • Ron Carter "The Youngest Drover: A True Story About Growing Up on a Cattle Drive" (1994)
  • John Swisher "Bits and Pieces" (1995)
  • Thomas Earl Diffee "The Diffee Family in America" (1996)
  • Gail Woerner " Belly Full of Bedsprings: The History of Bronc Riding" (1998)
  • Morma Smith "Our Town 2002: Raymond Stampede Centennial (2002)
  • Mike Graham "Old Cowboy Saddles and Spurs: Identifying the Craftsmen Who Made them" (2003)
  • Sylvia Mahoney "College Rodeo From Show to Sport" (2004)
  • Katie O'Rorke "History of Apple Valley" (2004)
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