OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE TUSCO LONG RIDERS The Shooting Makes It Fun, the People Make It Special. Writer/Editor: Baby Doll Blue

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We hope you enjoyed your first shoot at Tusco and hope to see you again soon. Thank you to Life-R with Patriot Casting for his donations to the prize table.

Raging Thunder 6. Life-R 7. Sixgun Seamus 8. Shotgun Chavezz 9. Swiss 10. Loquacious Loner 11. N.A. Custer 12. Last Gun 13. Jesse Duke 14. Bdoc 15. Moosetracks 16. Thunder Creek Kid 17.

1 OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE TUSCO LONG RIDERS The Shooting Makes It Fun, the People Make It Special March 2018 Writer/Editor: Baby Doll Blue March 3 rd 27 shooters came out for our 2 nd shoot of the year. It was a bit chilly but a great shoot and a great day! Congrats to Stone Creek Drifter, our Top Men s and Overall shooter and to Bdoc, our Top Ladies shooter! Welcome Hillbilly Drifter! We hope you enjoyed your first shoot at Tusco and hope to see you again soon. Thank you to Life-R with Patriot Casting for his donations to the prize table. As always, thank you to all who came out to shoot with us and we hope to see you all in April! Top Stone Creek Drifter 2. Buckaroo Bubba 3. Hooligan Howes 4. Gray Squirrel 5. Raging Thunder 6. Life-R 7. Sixgun Seamus 8. Shotgun Chavezz 9. Swiss 10. Loquacious Loner 11. N.A. Custer 12. Last Gun 13. Jesse Duke 14. Bdoc 15. Moosetracks 16. Thunder Creek Kid 17. Cayenne Kay 18. Random Lee 19. Prairie Dawg 20. Laramie Leadslinger Clean Shooters Prairie Dawg In this Issue Prairie Dawg s Little-Known Facts of the Old West Winter Range 2018 Champions Tusco Day at Kames Sports Next Shoot: April 7 th 2018 Rain or Shine 1 P a g e

2 N.A. Custer Cayenne Kay Rough Rider Willie Buckaroo Bubba ~Photographs provided by Baby Doll Blue with KK Photography~ 2 P a g e

Prairie Dawg's Little-Known Facts of the Old West Riders of the Pony Express: April, 1860 to October, 1861 Adapted from an article by Meghan Saar From: www.truewestmagazine.

3 Prairie Dawg's Little-Known Facts of the Old West Riders of the Pony Express: April, 1860 to October, 1861 Adapted from an article by Meghan Saar From: The idea that Pony Express riders wore buckskins can be traced to the popularity of Frederic Remington s 1901 oil painting, The Coming and Going of the Pony Express. But the master cowboy artist made a major mistake. -- Courtesy Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma America s first Pony Express rider set off on April 3, 1860, from St. Joseph, Missouri. He launched a coast-tocoast transfer of news and messages that would take 10 days instead of months to arrive. Pioneers hailed the news with joy. What seemed so monumental in 1860 was already old news in The telegraph promised instant communication. Instead of riders racing back and forth with your news, a series of electric current pulses would transmit messages over wires. But first those wires needed to be strung across the nation. Until then, Pony Express riders remained a vision of death-defying courage crossing the prairies and deserts. 3 P a g e

The Pony Express lasted only from April 3, 1860, to October 24, 1861, when telegraph lines were strung up across the nation, allowing transmission of messages more quickly.

Ottinger s 1867 wood engraving --Courtesy Library of Congress Author Mark Twain saw a Pony Express rider in early August 1861, near what is now Mud Springs in remote western Nebraska, related

4 The Pony Express lasted only from April 3, 1860, to October 24, 1861, when telegraph lines were strung up across the nation, allowing transmission of messages more quickly. For such a short-lived endeavor, our memory of the Pony Express has withstood the test of time. George M. Ottinger s 1867 wood engraving --Courtesy Library of Congress Author Mark Twain saw a Pony Express rider in early August 1861, near what is now Mud Springs in remote western Nebraska, related Christopher Corbett, author of Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express, at this year's Western Writers of America convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The stagecoach driver had been promising him that he would see one, and Twain had taken to riding on top of the coach to take in the view, wearing only his long underwear. The entire encounter took less than two minutes. Writing entirely from memory (with his brother s diary to stimulate him) in Hartford, Connecticut, 10 years later, Twain wrung an entire chapter of Roughing It from that moment. He thus initiated what many a chronicler would continue after him: he preserved the memory of the Pony Express, with perhaps a little embellishment. When the young journalist was traveling on that stagecoach to Nevada Territory, he was still Samuel Clemens. But by the time Roughing It was published in 1872, the world knew him as Mark Twain. No Stetson, No Pistol, No Buckskins? In his humorous American travelogue Roughing It, Twain gave one of the most noteworthy descriptions of Pony Express riders, clothed differently than how they are popularly pictured. The rider s dress was thin, and fitted close; he wore a round-about, and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his boot-tops like a racerider. He carried no arms he carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, too. He wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket. He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets strapped under the rider s thighs would each hold about the bulk of a child s primer. 4 P a g e

Walter Martin Baumhofer painted a grandiose and iconic portrayal of a Pony Express rider, complete with a classic wagon train in the background and plenty of sky above.

5 Walter Martin Baumhofer painted a grandiose and iconic portrayal of a Pony Express rider, complete with a classic wagon train in the background and plenty of sky above. Courtesy Heritage Auctions, 2012 Pony Express riders carried messages in four pockets sewn onto their mochila. Openings cut into the leather allowed riders to fit the mochila over the saddle horn and cantle. Reproduction mochila Courtesy Smithsonian National Postal Museum An actual Pony Express rider did not wear a big ol cowboy hat -- he wore a skull cap! He did not wear a fringe coat, nor did he carry a pistol! And his saddle didn t have bulging mail packets on the side! What seems odd at first, only because of numerous artistic representations that contradict the description, actually makes sense when one remembers: the lighter the ride, the faster the speed. One of the partners behind the Pony Express, Alexander Majors, explained the saddle s slim pockets, in his 1893 autobiography, Seventy Years on the Frontier. "The business letters and press dispatches were printed on tissue paper, which allowed for a light weight required for transporting the mail quickly via horses (usually a thoroughbred on the Eastern route and a mustang for the rugged Western terrain). The weight was fixed at 10 pounds or under; each half of an ounce cost $5 in gold to transport." A rider s desire to keep the weight as light as possible also explained why Twain s rider didn t carry a gun. Paul Fees, the retired curator from the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, explains: Along a well-traveled part of the trail (as where Twain encountered him), a rider wouldn t have to think about carrying a gun. At night, or through more dangerous territory, I suspect he would arm himself. The revolver of choice, apparently, was the Colt Model 1849 percussion pocket revolver in.31 caliber. The 80 men chosen to be Pony Express riders were called the pick of the frontier. Grit and gumption were required to put your life on the line and meet the 10-day schedule. Pony Express riders were well paid, making $50 a month, when a skilled blacksmith made $33. 5 P a g e

6 Would a Pony Express rider really go without his cowboy hat, his boots and his buckskins? Our notion of what that Pony Express rider looked like during his short-lived yet impressive career may still be somewhat accurate. Although one aspect does not appear to be true to history at all. Elanna Quackgrass Sally Skorupa of the National Pony Express Association, has ridden the Pony Express trails for more than 25 years. She claims: Boots were the main footwear, although it wouldn t be out of line for some riders to wear leather moccasins if they had them as normal footwear. The clothing changed with the seasons and was as varied as the riders themselves. Hats of all shapes and styles would have been worn. Wool, calico and cotton shirts, wool britches and homespun sackcloth would have been the norm. I have heard mention of some gloves, and even perhaps some gauntlets, but these were very young men, so their personal items would have been few. Twain s rider just had a penchant for a skull cap over a cowboy Billy Johnson, who performed the Pony Express history for hat and light shoes over boots. Buffalo Bill s Wild West show, stands next to a mochila And instead of a buckskin fringe coat, he wore a round-about, incorrectly stamped U.S. Mail. which is a short, close-fitting jacket. --Photo courtesy Heritage Auctions, December 2012 You may be familiar with the ornate version of this jacket, worn by U.S. Dragoons of the Antebellum era. Picturing Twain s Pony rider in a short jacket, tucked-in pants, light shoes, skull cap and minus a pistol may make logical sense. He possibly wore boots. Each rider s style adjusted with the seasons and topography, and beyond that, he wore what felt comfortable and light for the task at hand. Yet, getting Twain s rider to gallop in the Pony Express movie in our minds may prove difficult. After all, the popular idea of how a Pony Express rider should look is best portrayed in Frederic Remington s The Coming and Going of the Pony Express. His Pony Express rider is superbly clad in a buckskin suit, with his cowboy hat flared up to the sky and his trusty pistol strapped to his waist. But the master cowboy artist got this attire wrong. Quackgrass Sally continues, I have seen several artists clothe these riders in buckskins, and usually the Pony Express rider is portrayed older than the young age of the true riders. I have never found any evidence of the riders wearing buckskins. 6 P a g e

Left photo: Riders exchange their mail in Percy Van Eman Ivory s The Spirit of the Pony Express, allowing for messages to reach the coast in 10 days. Before then, news was dreadfully slow.

Courtesy Heritage Auctions, October, 2010 Even though his paintings showed the riders in incorrect attire, Remington paid proper homage to the Pony Express rider s history.

7 Left photo: Riders exchange their mail in Percy Van Eman Ivory s The Spirit of the Pony Express, allowing for messages to reach the coast in 10 days. Before then, news was dreadfully slow. For example, by the time people back East heard about the 1848 gold strike in California, six months had passed and some boomtowns had gone bust! Courtesy Heritage Auctions, October, 2010 Even though his paintings showed the riders in incorrect attire, Remington paid proper homage to the Pony Express rider s history. In the dead of winter, blinding snow all around him, his rider gallops off, having just changed his horse at one of the relay stations that made the endeavor such a success. The stops gave both horses and riders time to rest without gaps in the service of delivering the mail. All the inappropriate weight the artist threw onto his rider clothing-wise, he more than made up for in the overall tone that these riders were boys and young men to admire, who set forth in any kind of weather, in unforeseen worlds of danger, to do a job well done. Perhaps Remington and all the others who clothed these daring riders in buckskins were paying too much attention to Buffalo Bill Cody s portrayal of them. Buffalo Bill biographer Don Russell wrote, For three decades a representation of the Pony Express was a spectacle at every performance of Buffalo Bill s Wild West. No other act was more consistently on its program. It was easy to stage, and it had the interest of a race, as well as re-creating a romantic episode. Mr. Russell pointed out that almost nothing was written about [the Pony Express] for half a century after its brief existence. It is highly unlikely that the Pony Express would be so well remembered had not Buffalo Bill so glamorized it; in common opinion Buffalo Bill and Pony Express are indissolubly linked. Remington would have known of Buffalo Bill s Pony Express presentation. He studied the Wild West show cast for his illustration published in Harper s Weekly on August 18, He, like many Americans, undoubtedly saw Buffalo Bill as a buckskin-clad Pony Express rider on the September 19, 1888, cover of Beadle s Dime New York Library. Today, we romantically think of the Pony Express riders in the image presented to us by Frederick Remington. Without the romance, we might not even remember the Pony Express riders today. 7 P a g e

2018 Winter Range SASS National Championship February 19 th 24 th was the 2018 Winter Range SASS National Championships. We had many friends representing Tusco at Winter Range this year.

Gunfighter Boaz National Champion FCGF Honey B.

8 2018 Winter Range SASS National Championship February 19 th 24 th was the 2018 Winter Range SASS National Championships. We had many friends representing Tusco at Winter Range this year. We would like to congratulate everyone and we hope you all had a wonderful time. A special congratulations to: Stone Creek Drifter National Champion FCD Cheyenne Culpepper National Champion Sr. Gunfighter Boaz National Champion FCGF Honey B. Quick 2 nd LFC Dirt Slider 18 th FCD Clementine Valentine 2 nd LGF Canadian Black Magic 12 th Senior Cripple Creek Kid 5 th SRGF Two Bit Drifter 13 th 49er Lucky th Silver Senior Smokin Iron 2 nd Silver Senior Duelist Canadian Two Feathers 7 th L49er Dusty Lady 10 th Lady Senior Clean Matches- Boaz, Canadian Black Magic, and Stone Creek Drifter 6 th Annual Tusco Long Riders Day at Kames Sports Help us support our sponsors and join our meet n greet. Stop by Kames Sports in Canton on Saturday March 24 th Tusco Long Riders will be at Kames from 10 AM- 6PM. We hope to see you there! 8 P a g e

Tusco News & Notes Six Stages We now shoot six stages at Tusco. A few people have told us that they drive a good distance to shoot at Tusco and would like to shoot as much as possible.

9 Tusco News & Notes Six Stages We now shoot six stages at Tusco. A few people have told us that they drive a good distance to shoot at Tusco and would like to shoot as much as possible. Obviously we only have room for five shooting bays. So what we do is shoot the first stage you start on twice. Consider it a warm up stage. Only five stages will be scored. You can take your best time on your first stage. If you don t want to shoot it twice you do not have to. This would provide more shooting for our shooters. New Shooters Shoot for Free at Tusco The Tusco Long Riders will be offering FREE SHOOTS to ALL FIRST TIME SHOOTERS AT TUSCO. This is ONLY for a shooter s first ever shoot at Tusco. (*this is only for monthly matches, excluding High Noon 3-day Shoot in October, and the Charity Shoot in November.) New SASS Magazine With the new release of the SASS Quarterly Cowboy Chronicle, I once again would like to start collecting any unwanted issues of the magazine. We will use these for our promotional events, like our Tusco Long Riders Day at Kames Sports. Please either black out or cut off your name and address or I will do it before they are passed out. Thank you! 2018 Tusco Long Riders Wall Calendar Thank you to all who purchased our charity wall calendar! Cowboy Swap Meet at Monthly Shoots As a reminder, feel free to bring your old Cowboy Gear, Guns and Equipment to sell at our monthly shoots. It s a good opportunity to sell some of your unwanted stuff to your fellow shooters. Your items are your responsibility. Pre-Paid Shoots Looking for that perfect Gift for your Cowboy Friends and Family? How about a Pre-paid Shoot to a Tusco Monthly Match. They cost $10.00 each at a shoot or they can be mailed for $ Contact Buckaroo Bubba at pittfandwr@aol.com or if you would like to purchase them. Congratulations to our Treasure Please help us congratulate Angie Oakley on the purchase of her first home! We are immensely proud of you and wish you nothing but the best in all your future adventures! Facebook Page When you make a post about Tusco or share pictures on Facebook, include #TuscoLongRiders. Let everyone see what we are all about. 9 P a g e

10 Contact Information Tusco Long Riders 2132 Midvale Mine Rd SE Dennison, OH Tusco Long Riders on Facebook President Buckaroo Bubba Dan Ranker Vice President Prairie Dawg Lou Polsinelli Treasurer Angie Oakley Angela Haun Secretary Baby Doll Blue Kristina Hall Club Sheriff Split Rail Tim Watson Club Deputy Dewey Shootem David Keeler Club Deputy Six Gun Seamus Ken Flanagan Match Director Muleskinner Mike Legg Territorial Governor Stone Creek Drifter Achim Obernyer Supporting Clubs Big Irons Middletown, Ohio Blackhand Raiders Nashpost, Ohio Brown Township Regulators Malvern, Ohio Firelands Peacemakers Rochester, Ohio Greene County Cowboys Xenia, Ohio Henderson Wild Justice League Williamstown, WV Logan s Ferry Regulators Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Miami Valley Cowboys Piqua, Ohio Ohio Valley Vigilantes Mount Vernon, Ohio River Junction Shootist Society Donegal, Pennsylvania Sandusky County Regulators Gibsonburg, Ohio Scioto Territory Desperados Chillicothe, Ohio Shenango River Rats Masury, Ohio Wild West Point West Point, Ohio 10 P a g e

11 Tusco Long Riders Mercantile Brought to you by: LouAnn s Sewing Shoppe One-Shot Al & Needle-Eye Annie 11 P a g e

12 Billy Badazz Please show support to our sponsors. Like their pages and our Tusco Long Riders Page on Facebook! 12 P a g e

13 PATRIOT CASTING " BULLETS OF THE CHAMPIONS" STATE REGIONAL NATIONAL LIFE-R SASS# BRUCETON AVE. COLUMBUS, OHIO P a g e

OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE TUSCO LONG RIDERS The Shooting Makes It Fun, the People Make It Special. Writer/Editor: Baby Doll Blue

OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE TUSCO LONG RIDERS The Shooting Makes It Fun, the People Make It Special October 2018 Writer/Editor: Baby Doll Blue October 5-7th 113 Shooters, representing 8 states and two countries,