By Jeff Prince Debora Podvalova Chester Stidham herds longhorns, like the one being wrestled by Bill Pickett in a Stockyards sculpture. John Wayne fit Hollywood's image of an Old West cowboy, but many real cowboys more closely resembled John Ware, a former slave turned cattle puncher. Historians estimate that one in three cowboys were of African, Mexican, or Native American descent. Today, few people know about them. A new Fort Worth museum tells the story of these ethnic cowboys.
Few people know about the museum, either.
Both museums will be in the nationally renowned Cultural District. Meanwhile, the Cowboys of Color National Museum and Hall of Fame sits in a south Fort Worth neighborhood, across the street from the 2 Cheap Liquor Store. Visitors who stand in front of the building for long get panhandled for pocket change. Don't call the Fort Worth Visitor's Bureau, where a volunteer answered the phone recently and listed the city's many Western exhibits. She'd never heard of the Cowboys of Color museum.