The first Black cowboy inducted into the in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame of Fame was Bill Pickett. Pickett was born in the Jenks Branch community of Williamson County, Texas in 1870. He was the second of 13 children born to Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former enslaved person, and Mary "Janie" Gilbert. Pickett had four brothers and eight sisters. Pickett left school in the fifth grade to become a ranch hand. He soon began to ride horses and watch the Texas Longhorn steers of his native Texas. By the time Bill was 18 years old, the family had moved to Taylor, Texas, still in Williamson County, but east northeast of Round Rock. Bill began a horse-breaking service with his brothers, called Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders.
As a rancher, Pickett made a fateful observation. He studied how herder dogs managed to subdue steers by grabbing the bigger animal’s sensitive lip and then twisting it down to the ground. Pickett began to wonder if humans could do the same thing — and the sport of bulldogging, or wrestling cattle, was born. For bulldogging, or steer wrestling, Bill Pickett’s technique was to grab a steer by the horns, twist its head up and then bite its nose or lower lip and finish his task without using his hands. Steer wrestling a 1,000 lb. animal was no small feat for any cowboy, but the 160 lb. and 5’7″ Pickett was able to do it with grace and style. Not only was he a star attraction as a bulldogger, Pickett once rode a powerful elk, avoiding the sharp antlers until the elk tired.
He performed simple trick rides in town on weekends. By the late 1890’s, Pickett was demonstrating his bulldogging prowess at county fairs and rodeos throughout Texas, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and Kansas. An increasingly popular attraction, he hired a manager to handle bookings and promotion. Pickett was barred from many rodeos because of his race. Sometimes he was forced to claim he was a full-blooded Indian to perform. Some venues required that Pickett dress in his Native American rather than in his African American heritage. Bill Pickett entered his first rodeo in 1888 at the fair in Taylor. By the early 1900s he was a popular rodeo performer. In 1903 his bulldogging stunt attracted his first promoter, who gave him several nicknames.
Known by the nicknames "The Dusky Demon" and "The Bull-Dogger," Pickett gave exhibitions in Texas and throughout the West. Not surprisingly, he was a friend and confidant of Tom Mix, arguably the most popular cowboy movie star of his times. As a performer in Wild West shows he went to Canada, Mexico, South America, England, and all over the United States. For the next three decades, Bill Pickett astounded audiences with his ability to wrestle cattle. “What’s gonna happen, gonna happen,” he was known to say before facing a charging bull. Comedian, radio, movie star, and trick-roper Will Rogers appeared with Pickett on many occasions and counted the Black cowboy among his closest friends. Around the turn of the century, Rogers introduced Pickett to the Miller brothers, owners of the Oklahoma-based 101 Ranch.
His performance at the 1904 Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo was considered remarkable and spectacular. Many rodeo events have their origin in basic ranch skills: bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf roping and steer roping. Timing of the ranch based events, steer wrestling and bull riding were added to create a means to compete and to judge performance. The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Show was more similar to the later Wild West shows. Civil War veteran Colonel George Washington Miller established the 101 Ranch in the 1890’s, and after his 1903 death, his three sons ran the operation. The prosperous ranch, spread over more than 100,000 acres leased from the Cherokee and Ponca tribes, grew a variety of grains, vegetables, berries, and fruits and raised cattle, horses, bison, and other livestock.
In 1905, the Miller brothers began staging Wild West shows like the Buffalo Bill Cody shows of the nineteenth century but with an emphasis on rodeo. Joe Miller of the 101 Ranch and the Miller 101 Ranch Wild West show saw Pickett perform his bulldogging act in Forth Worth, Texas, and invited him to tour with the show. Pickett and his brother Charlie quickly became famous, not only for their feats of bulldogging, but also for their unique status as Black cowboys. He performed under the name "The Dusky Demon". Encouraged by the turnout, the Millers developed a traveling show that toured April through September from 1906 to 1916. Pickett performed with the show throughout North and South America and in Europe; in the off-season, he performed regular duties at the ranch.
The Miller Brothers show included specialty acts, trick shooting, trick riding, staged scenes like Indian attacks, stagecoach robberies and the like. Staged acts included Indian raids (starring real Oklahoma Indians), bandit attacks, and demonstrations of western arts. Besides Pickett, performers included Yakima Canutt (bronco rider and film stuntman), Will Rogers, Bee Ho Gray (trick roper), Art Accord (world bulldogging champ), Hoot Gibson (champion cowboy and silent movie star), Tex Ritter (actor and singer), Tom Mix (knife thrower, lariat spinner, and movie star), Princess Wenona (world’s greatest horseback rifle shot), Lucille Mulhall (“Queen of the Range”), Dixie Starr (trick and fancy rider), and Buck Jones (rodeo and movie star).
During his time with Miller Brothers, Bill also appeared in two films around 1921. They were "The Bull-Dogger" and "The Crimson Skull". "The Bull-Dogger" was made to document and promote the Miller Brothers outfit, while "The Crimson Skull" had a dramatic western story line. Both films were shot concurrently and in the vernacular of the day were billed as having “all colored” casts. From 1905 to 1931, the 101 Ranch Wild West Show was one of the great shows in the country. During one performance in 1910, the five-foot-seven-inch Pickett astounded and outraged a crowd of 25,000 in Mexico City after locals bet him he couldn’t subdue a fighting bull. Though the bull gored his horse — the horse survived — Pickett managed to wrestle the beast to the ground. The angry spectators, thinking he was mocking a national tradition, threw beer bottles, one of which broke Pickett’s ribs.
By 1916 or so, "the bite-'em bulldog hold that Pickett had invented was fading from the scene under the pressure of the humane society and the fact that most cowboys were repulsed at the thought of taking the snotty upper lip of a steer in their mouths." The 101 Ranch Wild West Show ceased touring in 1916, but the Miller brothers continued staging scaled-back exhibitions. Pickett lived and worked on the ranch, while his family resided in Oklahoma. He performed with the show from time to time and demonstrated bulldogging at local rodeos, but mostly he worked at regular ranch chores. He retired from competition in the 1920’s. In 1925, the Miller brothers put together a new traveling show, hoping to recapture the glory of the previous decade. However, too much time had passed, and the show did not draw enough audience.
The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Show folded during the Depression and Pickett went back to cowboying. However, his time as a cowboy at the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma was sadly limited as he was injured by a three year old chestnut bronc he was riding in a rodeo near Ponca City, Oklahoma. The horse got spooked, jerked Pickett down and in its panic, kicked him in the head on March 15, 1932. He never regained consciousness and died about two weeks later on April 2, 1932. He was buried on the ranch he had served for half of his adult life. Several years before his death, Pickett's innovation was outlawed in competitive rodeos. Moreover, some people began complaining that biting a steer's lip in an exhibition was inhumane treatment, and Pickett's attempts to teach his craft to others was largely unsuccessful.
As a performer in Wild West shows he went to Canada, Mexico, South America, England, and all over the United States. Less frequently acknowledged was Pickett’s Native ancestry - although, on occasion, Pickett claimed to be Comanche in order to compete in arenas that barred Black participants. Pickett became the first Black cowboy movie star. Bill Pickett became the first African American man whose achievements were honored in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma. Had he not been banned from competing with White rodeo contestants, Pickett might have become one of the greatest record-setters in his sport. But Pickett left behind a substantial legacy. His death ended the career of a charismatic cowboy whose appeal extended across racial lines. Not only had he invented bulldogging, but Pickett left his mark on American history as a Black cowboy.