User:Janice M. Ladendorf/sandbox
FRANK TEZOLPH HOPKINS
Frank Tezolph Hopkins married Gertrude Nehler on Oct. 11, 1929. She stated her husband had been born on August 11, 1865 and died on Nov. 5, 1951. Frank was a highly skilled professional horseman who worked as a dispatch rider for the Army and a specialty rider in Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Riding mustang stallions, he won over four hundred endurance races, the first one in 1877 and the last one in 1926. To breed his own endurance horses, he selected and used only Indian ponies or American Mustangs. Hidalgo, the horse he rode in the three thousand mile race in Arabia, came out of his breeding program. Frank understood and used Indian, vaquero, and cowboy horsemanship. He also advocated building a partnership with your horse. Today he would be called a natural horseman or a horse whisperer.(1)
Early Life and Education
His father, Charles A. Hopkins, was a mountain man who had come west during the California gold rush. He worked as a packer who delivered goods and equipment to various western Army posts and expeditions.(2) He was not a military man, but a civilian employee. He was ninety-seven years old when he died in 1919.
On Frank's marriage certificate, his mother's maiden name was given as Vallez Nauqua. She is thought to have been a member of the Oglala sub tribe of the Lakota Sioux. She was born in 1848, had Frank when she was seventeen, and died in 1920.
Frank was born in Wyoming near Fort Laramie, but not at the actual Fort. According to their official Handbook, there was an encampment south of it on the flood plain of the Laramie River. Those who lived there included the wives, widows, and children of mountain men who had married Indian women.(3) The Fort has no records of those who lived in this encampment. Frank was probably born there in a tepee.
In the 1940 census, his age is given as about sixty-six, his birth place as Wyoming, and his race as Indian. He and his wife lived with her mother, but they had no children.
Fort Laramie had two schools. One was for the children of enlisted men and civilian employees and the other for half Indian children.(3) Frank could have attended either one. In the 1940 census, he stated he had never completed fourth grade.
Frank's maternal grandfather gave him a little Indian pony as his first horse. His father insisted he ride without stirrups until he learned to go with the horse. Oglala Chief Sadheart became his mentor. He taught him how to carve and tame wild horses.
Frank's father had always planned to start a horse ranch on the Hartville uplift in southeastern Wyoming. In 1868, he imported breeding stock from the East and begun breeding, then selling old type Morgan for cow ponies and carriage horses. According to the records of the Wyoming Brand Society, the Hopkins ranch was located twenty some miles northwest of Fort Laramie. Their nearest post off was in Frederick, Wyoming, a small town from 1894 to 1923. Their nearest railhead was in Sunrise.
Career
Frank had multiple careers as a dispatch rider, endurance racer, specialty rider for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and deep sea diver.
Dispatch Rider
The Army normally used military dispatch riders; but during the Indian Wars in the late nineteenth century, the frontier army had a special problem. The west had not yet been mapped and their men did not know the country. They had to hire civilian dispatch riders and often used boys because their lighter weight was easier on the horses.
On his thirteenth birthday, Frank delivered his first dispatch for the Army. From 1877 to 1886, he carried their messages from the Sonora Mountains to the Canadian North West.(4) He soon learned mustangs were the best horses for this job. When the Army didn't need him, he hunted buffalo or caught wild horses.
Horse racing was a popular pastime on the frontier army posts and with the Plains Indian tribes. Unlike normal racing, endurance races had to cover at least fifty miles. During his years as a dispatch rider, Frank entered one hundred eighty-one informal races and won horses, merchandise, and some money. He also acquired the foundation stock for his own breeding program.
When the Indian Wars were over in Arizona in 1886, Frank headed for home on Joe, his buckskin mustang. When he met Buffalo Jones, he had already hear about the race from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont. Buffalo Jones encouraged him to enter, paid his entry fee, and bet on him to win. He often said he could never lose a dollar when Frank had a pony between his knees. As he expected, Frank and Joe won the race. They covered the eighteen hundred miles in only thirty-one days and only two other horses finished.(5)
This show was founded by William F. Cody in 1883. In 1886, he and his partner, Nate Salisbury, leased Madison Square Garden for the winter. At that time, they formed the Congress of Rough Riders and it included troupes of cowboys, Indians, and Mexicans. For the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, the number of troupes was expanded and it became the Congress of Rough Riders of the World.
When Frank won the Texas to Vermont race, Cody and Salisbury heard about it and asked Frank to join their cowboy troupe. He stayed with the show until Buffalo Bill died early in 1917. The cowboy troupe had their own event where they rode bucking broncos and did trick riding. They were also expected to play supporting roles in other events, especially the historical dramas. As the Chicago World's Fair, a family friend remembered seeing Frank throwing balls in the air for Buffalo Bill to shoot.
Bill's Show was an immense success and toured Europe more than once, but Frank was never billed as a star in this show. Stars had to be at every performance, while as a member of a troupe; Frank could get permission to leave the show for a few days to compete in an endurance race. Some of these races were organized by Buffalo Bill while other originated in special invitations or challenges. Whenever the show rested during the winter seasons, Frank went home to inspect his herd, break his colts, and compete in any endurance race he could find or organize.
In 1906, Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Lillie created a new joint show. Their show did no more European tours and Frank had all of his winters free. By then, automobiles had destroyed much of the market for horses. Frank cut back on his own breeding program, found buyers for his father's horses in Argentina and Japan, and bought cattle for the family ranch.
When the Two Bills Show went bankrupt in 1912, all of their business records were lost. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming estimates their records of employees are currently only seventy percent complete and they do not include Frank Hopkins. What names the show actually used to identify Frank are unknown, as is when they may have billed him a a white, Indian, or half-breed.
After the bankruptcy, Buffalo Bill was forced to put together a small show first as part of the Sells-Floto Circus and then as part of the 101 Ranch Show. The Wyoming State Museum has a parade bridle made and used by Frank Hopkins in Bill's Show from 1900-1915. As the show slid downhill, Frank did everything he could to help Buffalo Bill, including sometimes acting as announcer for the show. According to his wife, Frank was the only person who could get Buffalo Bill out of a bar without a fight.
Race in Arabia
In the fall of 1891, Bill's Show appeared in the World's Fair in Paris, France and there Frank met Ras Rasmussen who invited him to come to Arabia; but at that time, Frank was contracted to stay with the show or pay a heavy penalty. When the tour closed in London on Oct. 11, 1892, Frank was free to accept his invitation. At that time, he had over six months before he had to be back in the United States for the Chicago World's Fair.(1) He took his horse, Hidalgo, with him and two of his brothers with him. When he rode against the cavalry in Italy and Germany, they won tough races for him.
In Arabia, winter was the only feasible season for a long race. In the winter, a camel could go three weeks without water; in the summer, only three days. In 1892, extensive research of contemporary sources revealed this race was politically, geographically, and logistically feasible. While the route covered three thousand miles, it was politically feasible it went thought areas controlled by the British, Oman, and Ottoman Empires. It had to cross tribal boundaries, but not today's national ones. It was geographically feasible because it occurred before the discovery of oil on the western coast of the Persian Gulf. Over half of the route followed coastlines and it never went through the Rub al Kahli or the other two real deserts in the Arabian Peninsula. Therefore, logistic support could easily have been provided by dhows and camels.(1)text
Until 1875, little was known about south and central Arabia in Europe and less in the United States. Frank's descriptions of the Arabian horses, the terrain, and the available feed were accurate. He and Hidalgo took sixty-eight days to travel three thousand miles and passed the finish stone thirty-three hours before the next horse. In 2004, this race was fictionalized in the Walt Disney movie, Hidalgo. When Frank and Hidalgo returned to Aden, Frank won two shorter races on his other horses. He left all three behind with Ras Rasmussen, but brought an Arabian stallion home with him.(6)
Last Years
Since the Two Bills Show did no European tours, after 1906 Frank had all his winters free. This is probably when he learned deep sea diving and used his new skill on a few construction jobs. In 1929, his marriage certificate gives his occupation as a diver. During World War I, his wife stated he worked as a diver fortifying New York harbor. Afterwards, his parents died and Frank spent two years in Belgium training trotting horses. When he returned to the States, he continued to work with trotters and spent time with his five remaining mustangs. According to the records of the Wyoming Brand Society, he sold the family ranch in 1926. In that year, he had to defend his reputation as an endurance rider in his two final races. In 1928, his last mustang died.
When his wife's father died in 1925, his widow turned the family home into a boarding house. Frank became one of her boarders and gave her house as his address on his marriage certificate. The address was 4505 23rd St., Long Island City, Queens, New York. He and his wife, Gertrude, lived there until he died in 1951. According to the 1940 census, he was paid well for working part time in construction.
Frank had made many friends when he had worked as a dispatch rider or in Bill's Show, as well as when he competed in endurance races. Since he now had a home with Gertrude, they could enjoy entertaining those who were still alive. Although he no longer had mustangs, he kept riding and training as a sideline to his construction work.
A Legendary Horseman
When Charles B. Roth published articles about Frank as an endurance rider in 1935, 1936, and 1937(7), the northeastern equestrian community discovered he now lived New York. At this time, endurance riding still survived, but in a new form. The Green Mountain Horse Association was founded in 1926 and held their first one hundred mile ride in 1937. When they discovered Frank, he came to their events, was invited to judge one of their rides(8), and published articles in their magazine, The Vermont Horse and Bridle Trail Bulletin. In one of them, he did recommend steps be taken to save the remaining old Spanish mustangs.
Unlike much of the published material on his life, Frank's writings on horses, horsemanship, and endurance riding were relatively undamaged by poor editing and he comes across to the reader as a highly skilled, widely experienced, and knowledgeable horseman.(1) He became close friends with the Pyle and Conroy families and surviving members stated they thought highly of his skills as a horseman. Frank also talked to other expert horsemen and helped anyone who asked for his advice or assistance.
Albert W. Harris owned and rode both mustangs and Arabians. In 1941, he published one of Roth's articles and two letters from Frank in his book, The Blood of the Arab(6). This material was widely used by well known authors, such as J. Frank Dobie and John Richard Young(9). Frank became even more famous when his accomplishments as an endurance rider were reported in more articles and mentioned in more books.
Frank died on Nov. 5, 1951, but his reputation lived after him. He was buried at Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery, Middle Village, Queens County, New York.
References
[1]Ladendorf, Janice M. Searching for the Real Frank T. Hopkins. CreateSpace, 2016.
[2]Bourke, John G. On the Border with Crook. Skyhorse Publishing Co., 2014, pp. 154, 210.
[3]Lavender, David. Fort Laramie and the Changing Frontier. Handbook 118, National Park Service, 1983, pp. 67, 136-7, 142.
[4]Parker, Colonel R., "Riders and Their Records", Letter to the Vermont Horse and Bridle Trail Bulletin, July, 1942, p. 105.[1]
[5]Hopkins, Frank T., "1800-mile Trail Ride-Texas to Vermont", Vermont Horse and Bridle Trail Bulletin, April, 1940, pp. 43-4, 53-4.[2]
[6]Harris, Albert W., "Back in Arabia-Completing the Circle", Blood of the Arab. Chicago, Arabian Horse Club of American, 1941. pp. 48-52.[3]
Amaral, Anthony. "Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins", The Horse Lover's Magazine, June-July, 1962, pp. 28-9, 64.[4]
[7]Roth, Charles B."Brains Plus Endurance", The Horse, March-April, 1935, pp. 18-20.[5]
Roth, Charles B., "Great Riders", The Horse, March-April, 1936, pp. 16-17.[6]
Roth, Charles B., "The Toughest Race", The Horse and Horseman, Jan. 1937, pp. 31, 49-50.[7]
[8]Hopkins, Frank T., "A Judge's Impression of the Ride", Vermont Horse and Bridle Trail Bulletin, Oct. 1941, p. 135-6.[8]
[9]Dobie, J. Frank. The Mustangs. University of Texas Press, 1952, pp. 286-7.
Young, John Richard. The Schooling of the Western Horse, University of Oklahoma, 1954, pp. 50-52.
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