Charles Marion Russell, The True Cowboy Artist

Story By Terry McGahey

Charles Marion Russell, also known as C.M. Russell, was born on March 19, 1864, in Missouri. He left his home around eighteen years of age and headed out to experience the wild west firsthand. This landed him in Montana, working for a short period of time on a sheep ranch. Russell then went to work for a fellow by the name of Jake Hoover, who was a hunter, tracker, and trapper who became a rancher in central Montana within the Judith Basin.

 
Russell was working as a cowhand during the winter of 1886-7, which became known as "The Big Die Up". The winter that year was deathly cold, reaching forty-six to even seventy below zero with sixteen inches or more of snow, the snow is one thing but with those below average temperatures life outside becomes impossible to deal with for any more than about ten to fifteen minutes. 

Myself, I have dealt with thirty-five below, being out in it for short periods of time, but I can't even imagine seventy below zero. 

When spring finally came in 1887, that's when the horrible realization set in. The loss of cattle was so terrible it would change the ranching business forever, the carcasses were scattered all across the fields and many more even washed down several streams and the cattle that survived were nothing but skin and bone. The "Big Die Up" and overgrazing brought an end to open range ranching for the most part.

During that time, Russell was working for the O.H. Outfit when the owner of the ranch contacted the ranch foreman to ask how his cows made it through the winter. The foreman sent the owner a watercolor made by Russell, about the size of a postcard of a very gaunt steer being watched closely by a pack of wolves. The caption of this watercolor is called "Waiting For A Chinook". 

A chinook is a warm, dry wind that blows down the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains at the end of winter. Later, Russell re-painted that scene larger, and it became one of his best-known works of art.

After this time period, Russell began receiving commissions for his work and became a full-time artist. Unlike Remington and other Western artists, not to take anything from them, Russell was a true cowboy, and Remington's work was done by observation rather than first-hand experience. 

Russell's art covered not only cowboys, but also landscapes and Native Americans, as well as bronze sculptures. Russell's works are displayed in several places today, including the C.M. Russell Museum Complex in Great Falls, Montana, the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the Montana Historical Society in Helena, Montana, and the Sid Richardson Museum also in Fort Worth.

In 1896, Russell married his wife, Nancy, and in 1897, they moved to Great Falls, Montana, where he spent most of his time until his death on October 24, 1926. By the end of his life, Russell had been a local celebrity but had also become a celebrity through art critics around the world. 

By the time of his passing, he had created approximately four thousand works of art. Upon the day of his funeral, the school children were let out of school to watch the funeral procession in which his coffin was carried in a glass-sided coach pulled by four black horses.

Terry McGahey is a writer and Old West historian.

This once-working cowboy is best known for his epic battle against the City of Tombstone and its historic City Ordinance Number 9, America's most famous gun-control law.


Terry was instrumental in finally repealing Tombstone City Ordinance Number 9. He is directly responsible for compelling the City of Tombstone to adhere to Arizona's laws.

If you'd like to read about his epic battle against the City of Tombstone, click here: The Last Gun Fight -- The Death of Ordinance Number 9 (Chapter One)