Benjamin Earl "Bennie" Jordan
(1908-1999)
Bennie Jordan was born October 2, 1908 to Ben F. Jordan and Bessie
Flo Miller Jordan on a ranch in Warm Springs Valley, Oregon. The
family lived at the Warm Springs Ranch until 1912 when the waters
of the Warm Springs Dam covered the ranch site. From there they
moved to the “Hand Place” at Westfall, Oregon.
The Jordan family were cattle and sheep ranchers with places at
Cow Valley and Westfall. Bennie attended school at Bonita, Oregon,
Westfall and a school near “Becker” Ranch.
While attending school in Westfall, Bennie remembers one momentous
fall when he was about eight years old. He saw coming towards him,
from the west, a band of about one hundred Indians heading for the
Snake River to winter there. Bennie ran and hid in the sagebrush
thinking the Indians didn’t see him. After they had passed, he ran
on to school.
This was the old Indian trail that these Indians had been using
for centuries. It ran from Burns, Oregon to the Snake River. It
was the same trail that Miller and Lux started using for their beef
trail.
Bennie thinks this was the last year these Indians made this migration.
(About 1915 or 1916). He said the men rode horseback and the women
had ponies pulling little buckboards (or hacks). They had many dogs
with them.
Bennie went to work for Miller and Lux (PLS) at the Harper Division
when he was 13 years old. Louie Deal was the boss. He had Bennie
take some horses from the Harper Ranch to the Clover Ranch. There
he was to break and ride snaffle bit colts, horses and mules. The
mules had to be chained at night or they would be gone by morning.
He had to saddle them up the night before so he could get up before
daylight to get started. He would pull the cinch up real tight and
get on.
After that, he went to the Harper Ranch under Robie Copeland. From
there, he went out with the buckaroo wagon on the Owyhee side
The PLS Co. owned the Rhinehart Ranch and from there they took four
thousand head, in two bunches, from the Island Ranch to Willow Creek
and shipped at El Dorado to the Miller and Lux ranches in California.
One time they drove fifteen hundred head from Harper Ranch right
through the town of Vale to the “Mallet” ranch near the Malhuer
Butte. The cattle were shipped from there and then Bennie and the
Buckaroos rode back to Harper.
When Bennie was 16 years old, he went on a Miller and Lux beef drive
to Winnemucca under Charley Riley as boss. They left Harper with
three horses each and gathered the cattle at the Red -S Field and
started the drive, picking up additional horses at the PLS ranches
on the way. They stopped at Windy Point, Juniper, Mann lake, Alvord,
Serrano Point, Quinn River Ranch and while camped at “Davey Town,”
a bad storm came up and scattered the cattle. They had to gather
them all night in the cold storm.
Just about all the PLS horses would buck and Bennie remembers one
that would run backwards when he got on and then fall over backwards
with him!
He stated that on a long drive like that, they worked the cattle
very quiet, letting them string out for up to four or five miles.
It took them tree weeks to trail to Winnemucca from the Island Ranch
where they started.
When they finally reached Winnemucca, the boss there had to quarantine
the bunkhouse due to small pox. So the buckaroo’s had to sleep in
the barn. Then they went to the “Humboldt Hotel” and had a bath
and a haircut. They stayed in Winnemucca about four or five days.
Then they shipped the cattle to California and headed home. It was
cold and miserable and Bennie was sick with the flu.
Bennie had never known anything but a hard life working cattle and
horses. He had learned from his Dad and other old time Vaqueros
like “Jumper” Jones, who was his brother-in-law.
All through his life, Bennie had a reputation for being able to
ride anything. Jumper had taught him how to get on colts, how to
put his knee in their shoulder and ease up real slow. He could take
horses that others couldn’t handle; nasty, rank horses that would
buck a man high and then try to kick him when he came down. But
Bennie could take a horse like this and get him to do anything;
even use him at brandings and never have him out of control. People
would bring him horses that no one wanted to go near; horses that
would kick a man’s foot in the stirrup and then drop his head and
start to buck. But Bennie was always ready for him, using his quirt
or romal to distract him, or pull his head at the right moment.
He would take mean horses and ride them when he didn’t have too.
It was like a challenge to him. Throughout his entire life, Bennie
could handle horses like these, even riding snaffle bit horses when
he was in his sixties.
After Miller and Lux went out of business in the late twenties,
Bennie married a young lady who worked in the bank at Vale, Oregon.
But, unfortunately, she became sick and died not long after they
were married.
Then he married Iris Shunn and they had 14 children. As of this
writing (1999), there are 44 grandchildren, 69 great-grandchildren
and 9 great great-grandchildren.
Bennie and Iris raised their family mostly in the Vale, Oregon area
while Bennie worked for ranchers like Fred Walters, who had owned
the “Agency Ranch”, Walt McCuen at Swamp Creek and Tom Davis at
Westfall, Alvord and Cascade, Idaho. The family also had their own
place where they raised horses and cattle. His daughters remember
their Dad using teams of horses whenever there was any work to be
done.
Bennie also made his own reatas and worked with his son, Bob making
bits and spurs when Bennie was ninety years old. He truly was an
all-around Buckaroo all of his life.
Bennie passed away on May 12, 1999... another old-time Vaquero gone
to rest after many rough rides on “cranky” horses.
Bennie Jordan was inducted into the Buckaroo Hall of Fame in September
1999
~
Dennis Nelson wrote this Biography, June 4, 1999
|
