Storm and Stampede on the Chisholm [Paperback]

Hubert E. Collins (Author), Robert R. Dykstra (Introduction), Hamlin Garland (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 1998

In 1883 young Hubert Collins traveled the Chisholm Trail to a ranch in Indian Territory. For the next fifteen months he lived at the Red Fork Ranch on the banks of the Cimarron River at present-day Dover, Oklahoma. It was the boy’s “great land of romance,” a dusty empire of cattle and rattlesnakes owned by his older brother, Ralph. With plenty to learn from rangy cowboys in residence and frontier characters passing through, Hubert enjoyed more adventure than he would ever know again. He befriended Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who stopped by the ranch, and he visited them at the Darlington Agency. In Storm and Stampede on the Chisholm, first published in 1928, he recorded his excitement at being exposed to an elemental way of life soon to be gone.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As a young man in 1883, Collins spent more than a year on the Red Fork Ranch in Oklahoma, during which time he learned Western lore from both cowboys and Indians. In this 1928 volume, he relates his adventures on the range.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Introducing this Bison Books edition is Robert R. Dykstra, a professor of history and public policy at the State University of New York, Albany.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (February 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803263864
• ISBN-13: 978-0803263864
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,844,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A young boy's experiences in early (pre) Oklahoma, February 24, 2006

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storm and Stampede on the Chisholm (Paperback)

In 1883, when Hubert Collins was 11 years old and living in Iowa, he talked his father into letting him leave school to join his older brother on his recently acquired ranch just off the Chisholm Trail where it crosses the Cimarron River (present-day Dover, OK). He stayed at brother Ralph's Red Fork Ranch for 15 months before returning to Iowa. The experiences garnered there would last a lifetime, and later in life, after a successful career as an internationally respected engineer, and having seen the country change so much, he decided an account of what he had seen and learned during his youthful Red Fork Ranch days was worth writing. He spent four years gathering information, writing to relatives and acquaintances of that time period and conducting research in the Oklahoma Historical Society, before beginning his task.

Because of his initial youthful perspective and the passage of time, probably some of what Collins writes may not be absolutely true. He mentions, for example, some visitors to the ranch by name, but further investigation indicates Collins must have been mistaken. But this really doesn't matter because it's not the specifics of names and dates that Collins is interested in, but in life in general for a boy (and the adults) around him. The ranch was near the Darlington Indian Agency and he spent much time among the Indians, mainly Cheyenne and Arapahoe, playing with and befriending Indian kids his own age. He admires and respects the Indian ways, a view he carried over into his adult years. Because of its location the ranch was a busy place, and Collins's observations are fresh and lively. Although written as an adult, he tries to relate events as he must have witnessed them as a pre-teen; maybe in his mind's eye that perspective never left him. And that is the biggest satisfaction with the book, the novel, innocent-in-youth vision he brings to his chronicle. The book is wonderfully entertaining and will be enjoyed by all who like reading about the Old West on the Plains just before settlement would begin in earnest.