This is a pretty involved scene as I wanted to get in as much of the actual detail of a Chuckwagon set up as possible. It took me about a year and a half to complete it. In the closeup photos in the photos below you can see the details more clearly. The cowboy leaning against the front wagon wheel is me with my mouth full of beans & biscuits. Tied up next to me is my first horse Biscuit, like Boomer a true and trusted friend who left this world much too early. Biscuit hated mud puddles…he just would not cross them. I always prayed when we came upon one it was in the clear and not bordered by a bunch of poison ivy infested brush. Unfortunately it never seems to work out that way. He would cross a river … no problem…but a mud puddle?….no way!!!
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The wagon is a copy of the one we owned and donated to the Woolaroc Museum here in Oklahoma. It is 99 percent original, right down to the working breaks and chuck box. It was manufactured in Springfield, Missouri somewhere around 1900 and sold new at the C.L.Higgenbottom store in Seneca, Missouri. The reason I know this is because you can still make out the lettering on the sides. I have a photo of Seneca taken about that time and from the looks of it old C.L. owned just about the whole town as his name is on almost every building. Only one building in the photo still stands today and it houses an filthy auto repair garage. As for the wagon it’s in great shape with everything being original except for the main connecting timber between the two axles. Judy and I did a lot of cooking from the back of it. They say that cowboys had it rough but if the food they ate was anything like what we’ve rustled up over the fire or in a dutch, oven the evening meal they had after hard day in the saddle was something to really look forward to. A plate of tasty beans, a cup of hot coffee and a warm biscuit was hard to beat after wrangling cows all day.
The Chuckwagon is presently on display at the Museum along with this carving.
Comments welcome.
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