This week’s open thread will focus on African-American Cowboys.
George McJunkin(1851–1922) was the African American cowboy in New Mexico who discovered the Folsom Site in 1908. The son of slaves who was born in Midway, Texas, McJunkin was about 14 years old when the Civil War ended. He worked as an oxen driver, working on freighters. He reportedly learned how to read from fellow cow punchers. McJunkin taught himself to read, write, speak Spanish, play the fiddle and guitar, eventually becoming an amateur archaeologist and historian. In 1868, McJunkin arrived in New Mexico, and became a foreman on the Thomas Owens Pitchford Ranch.
Later in his life McJunkin was a buffalo hunter, and eventually worked for several ranches in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. He was also reported to be an expert bronc rider and one of the best ropers in the United States. The importance of McJunkin historically is the discovey of the Folsom site. One day when patching fence on the ranch where he worked and riding perimeter, he noticed a small canyon. he went down inside and discovered a giant prehistoric bison, now contained in the Smithsonian. between the ribs of the bison was a distinctive type of human-manufactured stone tool now called a Folsom point.
McJunkin recognized the significance of this discovery and let the site undisturbed and alerted archaeologists to what he had found. As it is known that giant Bison of the type that McJunkin discovered had gone extinct at the end of the last Ice Age, the antiquity of Native Americans in North America was established.
When he died in 1922, McJunkin was buried at the Folsom Cemetery in Folsom, New Mexico
***Information Courtesy of Wikipedia.org***