Guest Post - Greg A. Hoots

Flint Hills: Real Cowboys and Cowgirls, too!

One of the highlights of the new pictorial history book, “Flint Hills” by Greg A. Hoots (Arcadia Publishing, 2011) is the chapter about “real cowboys” who worked on Flint Hills ranches back in the day.

The image and caption below shows that it wasn’t just the boys who knew their way around the ranches.

Sometimes, the real cowboys are not boys at all. This view of Laura Gnadt (Barthuly) dates from the 1940s. Laura’s brother Martin Gnadt donated this photograph, saying, “She was really good on a horse, she could ride as good as all of the guys. And, she was good handling cattle, too.” Indeed, she was. She married Winston Barthuly, and the couple operated a dairy farm at Paxico, Kansas, for decades. (Courtesy Martin Gnadt.)  – Excerpted from “Flint Hills”

There’s more to the story, as Greg A Hoots, the author of the book (available May 23) describes below:

The most rewarding part of writing this book is found in sharing photographs. I had 41 contributors to this project, a record for my publishing efforts. People brought me photos wanting to share them with others. I found it very rewarding that I could provide a platform for these historic images to be made available to the public in a single collection.

When I happened to see Laura Barthuly of rural Paxico, Kansas recently, I told her that her brother, Martin Gnadt, had given me a photo of her with her horse on the family farm while growing up. I explained that I was going to use it in my new book. Ms. Barthuly, now in her 80s, was visibly excited about being featured in the chapter, “Real Cowboys of the Flint Hills.

 “I know the picture,” she said, “but, really, I almost always rode bareback.”

Sharing stories like Ms. Barthuly’s is the most rewarding part of writing these books.

Greg A. Hoots, a noted photograph historian and author of the new book Flint Hills (available May 23), has produced a volume of over 200 historic images of the Flint Hills. Other books by Hoots include Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America: Wabaunsee County and Images of America: Topeka. Hoots resides in Kansas City, Kansas, with his wife, Cheryl.

For more information visit http://bit.ly/hFwPhR. Save 20 % on the new book, Flint Hills, by entering FLINTHILLS at checkout.