Early Country Music: Cowboys Told About Their Lives in Song

Narrator:  Last week, we talked about the growth of the cattle industry. This industry started in Texas during the eighteen seventies.  With its growth came a new kind of worker -- the man who watched and took care of the cattle. These men who watched the cows and rode with them as they moved across the wild lands were often young. Just boys. And so they were called "cowboys. "

The cattle herds were driven a very long way to the cattle markets and had to be kept and watched on the open trail for many weeks. And the trail took the cowboys over rough country in all kinds of weather. The wild prairie lands were not friendly to men or animals. It was a lonely land. And the howling of wolves and winds at night made it more so.