Search This Blog

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

BONE PICKERS by Linda Broday

A few years ago it used to be big business for folks to go out and pick up cans alongside the highways and sell them. But that seems to have fallen along the wayside, whether due to loss of interest or the price they were getting paid.

In the Old West lots of people turned to the bone business to survive. Men loaded up their wives and children in their wagons and set out across the Plains, picking up animal bones, especially those of dead buffalo. Those people who made a living doing that were called “bone pickers.”

From 1870 to roughly 1883, herd upon herd of buffalo were decimated by buffalo hunters. They’d shoot the animals and leave them to rot in the sun. Then along came the bone pickers to pick up the bones and haul them to the nearest rail head for shipment back East. Firms that specialized in the making of fertilizer and bone china paid dearly for the gruesome shipments.

Bone Pickers earned around eight dollars a ton for the bones, which was pretty good money for that time. It kept a lot of people from starving I imagine.

And they sometimes they formed a caravan with as many as 100 bone wagons traveling together. All those bone wagons must’ve been quite a sight. Here in Texas, San Antonio shipped 3,333 tons back East between July 1877 and November 1878. It was big business.

Hundreds of bone roads crisscrossed Texas. Wichita Falls, the place where I used to live until 2009, sat on a major one. Strange isn’t it that you never know all about a place and find out new things only after you move away?

To avoid “bone wars,” the pickers lived by an unwritten code. The first one upon an area had the right to those bones and no one else could come in take over. That way, the bone picker didn’t have to guard his territory day and night or rush to get through.

Bone piles stacked alongside railroad tracks sometimes reached ten feet high, twenty feet wide, and a quarter of a mile long. That’s a whole lot of bones.

Once the buffalo bones were gone, bone pickers turned to collecting cattle bones here in Texas. Ranchers would pay to have pastures kept clean of bones. This practice continued well into the twentieth century.


So, are there any bone pickers out there? What is most desperate thing you’ve ever done to make ends meet? Would you have resorted to collecting bones?

18 comments:

  1. Fascinating!! I always wondered where the bone for bone china came from in the old days! The original recyclers :-) And though it seems gruesome to some, it's reusing what nature provides....and I admire that. There was little that went to waste in the old days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Gail, I'm glad you enjoyed my post. I found it very interesting the things people were and still are willing to do when times are hard. There were certainly lots of bones to pick up back then. Yes, I too did not know that was where bone china came from. Bone was used for a number of things but it made excellent fertilizer. I've always wanted to write a story where the heroine's father is a bone picker. I may still do it one day.

      Take care and have a great day!

      Delete
  2. I remember reading a novel about Amarillo and bones and bone picking were a major plot line. Can't remember the name of it, but it did fascinate me. I was unaware of how extensive the practice was. Fascinating. I would imagine bone picking was much like what day laborers do today, whatever it is to make ends meet. Doris

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Doris, I'm glad you found it interesting. I'm not familiar with the novel you mentioned about Amarillo but I'm sure a good many authors have used it as a plot line. It would make a great story. I hope your day is fulfilling and happy.

      Delete
  3. WOW. I never knew this, Linda. Hmm. The most desperate thing I've done...probably going to work at Wendy's while waiting on another job to come open 2 months later--I knew it was coming and it was mine, but the gas bill had to be paid. Wendy's was the first place that said, "You're hired!"

    My sister resorted to dumpster diving for stuff the grocery stores got rid of--this was after her divorce when she had 2 little kids and worthless husband who wouldn't pay child support. I know other people who have sold blood for $50 to buy gas money. That always makes me sad. Our country should not have people that have to do that kind of thing to survive.

    Excellent post!
    Cheryl

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Cheryl, I'm glad you found my subject interesting. I've been so lucky. I've never had to do anything real bad in order to survive but I know a woman right now who is homeless at 56 years old. She lost her job during the big downturn 6 years ago and has been unable to find work. So she hires herself out as a Virtual Assistant to author and companies. The bad thing is few people hire her. I'm so lucky I found her though. She's been a Godsend to me. I admire her so much. I'm sorry about your sister. Dumpster diving would be far worse than picking up bones to sell. Good grief.

      Have a wonderful, fun day!

      Delete
  4. Linda, all of this was news to me. I agree with you: It's amazing the things we don't know about places we thought we knew well.

    Although born of desperation, bone picking was quite ingenious -- and, as Gail mentioned, an excellent illustration of early recycling. What a fascinating bit of history to include in a novel. Knowing you, you've already got that planned. It wouldn't be the first history lesson I've gotten from one of your western romances. ;-)

    HUGS, dear lady! I always look forward to your posts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kathleen, hang out with me and you'll learn all sorts of things, even things you DON'T want to know. LOL The world is so full of interesting things. We can never know it all. But, good grief, I should've known things in my own backyard! Yes, I do plan on using this as part of a plot line in the third book of my Bachelors series. I think it will add depth and color.

      I hope you're doing well and busy with your own stories. Have a great day.

      Delete
  5. I knew nothing about bone pickers. What a sad testament to our ecology that so many buffalo were slaughtered for no good reason. I guess picking bones does equate to picking up tin cans and glass soda bottles, but a bit more gruesome.
    As a kid, my friends and I would gather soda bottles and turn them in for pennies at the little store down the road. It was fun, like hunting Easter eggs. Everyone recycles these days and there are huge fines for tossing out trash on the roads, so maybe that's why not as many cans and bottles are out on major highways. I find things like that now and again in my front yard though.
    That picture of buffalo bones was impressive. It was like a statement about the loss of buffalo. I'm glad at least, that people did have a reason to pick them up so at least the bones could be repurposed in some beneficial way.
    Such an interesting post, Linda. All the best to you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Sarah, I'm glad my post caught your interest. Yes, it was so utterly senseless to slaughter all those buffalo for no reason. It was simply shameful. The hunters killed them for sport, just like they're doing now with the African elephant and lion herds. Makes me sick. I wish people would realize what they're doing. But enough about that. I'll climb down off my soapbox.

      I agree that at least the bone pickers made a living doing that. I once went to a church when my kids were little and I had no money to buy not even one gift for them. The church gave me a few used toys to put under the tree. Those were very bad times. Seems we all face things like that at one time or another. It makes us more grateful for things we can get later on.

      Wishing you a wonderful day and much success with your writing.

      Delete
  6. Linda,
    This was news to me as well. Thanks for an eye-opening post. While the recycling is wonderful, the near decimation of the buffalo herds is just heartbreaking. It's happened in whaling, and it's happening right now with the elephants in Africa.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kristy, I'm glad I could bring something few know about. I thought it was very interesting. Yes, it's heartbreaking to see other animals facing the same threat of extinction. I swear, I don't know if people have a heart anymore. They do such horrible things and give it no thought. They don't care. I believe they'll answer for it someday in some way. If not in this life, then the hereafter.

      Sending hugs and special wish that you have a wonderful day.

      Delete
  7. Yowzers, what great info. I had no idea. What I do know is only 23 buffalo survived by the year 1900, sickening. It is believed the extermination of the buffalo caused the many grasshopper infestations in the 1870's because the ecology had been so messed with. Sheesh. Grrrrr. xo

    ReplyDelete
  8. Linda,

    Extremely interesting post! I have to agree with other posters that while it was an occupation born from desperation it sounds like it could turn into quite a thriving business and a useful one, as well.

    Thanks for sharing. This is something I would be interested in researching more about.

    --Kirsten

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is fascinating. How did you ever come across this rich piece of lost history? I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I read a book one time about a group fleeing from a group of bone hunters. In this book they were portrayed as outlaws. Now I understand how it could benefit a hungry family. Such an interesting post.
    I don't remember this, but it has come down as a family story. When I was little my parents were both sick an in bed for a long time. They say when there was little or nothing to eat, they'd send me the quarter of mile to my aunts and tell me to ask her if she'd give me some meat. Of course, she always did and from what I later learned, she had no idea that it was because I had nothing to eat at home. She thought I just liked her food.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'll count this as my learning something new for the day. I'd never heard of Bone Pickers before. Thanks for sharing your research.

    ReplyDelete