Masterson JY Bunkhouse

“Home was wherever a cowboy hung his hat.” The cliché had truth to it. Cowboys of the American West were vagabonds, roaming from place to place. At the ranch headquarters, the bunkhouse was their home until they moved on again.

Cowboys were young, many having left their homes to sign on with a cow outfit in hopes of seeing the country and working with horses. Theirs was a poorly paid and dangerous job, whether they were on the trail or at the ranch. Many of these cowhands had very little education and few possessions, but they had horse sense, so to say. They were characterized as having a wild streak, as being uninhibited and fun, and liking women. They were also considered hard to tame, much to the dismay of some young ladies. And most cowboys had a good sense of humor. For example, they enjoyed dragging a rope over a sleeping man’s blanket and shaking snake rattles in his ear. The sleeping man awoke with heart pounding. Hearing the laughter, his temper flared, face reddened, and the episode ended until the next unsuspecting “rattlesnake” victim came along.

A sense of humor helped cowboys cope with the responsibilities of his job. Cowboying has gained a questionable reputation as being “romantic,” when in reality, it was very hard work. In some situations, the responsibilities were accompanied by long months of boredom and loneliness. Work for some cowboys included watching for signs of screwworms in the cattle they tended.

Screwworms were larvae hatched from the eggs of blow flies in the open wound of a cow. To kill the worms, a mixture of carbolic acid, axle grease and any number of other things was rubbed into the wound. Dehorning cattle was dangerous work, as was pulling a steer or mother cow from quicksand, which was prevalent around rivers and streams. Cowboys fought prairie and ranch fires and were always on the lookout for trouble, whether it was threatened by man or beast. Broken bones were the least of what occurred when men on skittish horses were thrown from their saddle into the path of running cattle—or pitched in the dirt by a bucking bronc.

At the end of the day, the bunkhouse looked good to weary cow hands. Most bunkhouses were crowded and smelled of sweat, cattle and tobacco. But it was a place where they could roll out their bedrolls, usually outside, which is where most of these roamers preferred to sleep. In bad weather, however, the bunkhouse floor was a welcome respite. Lighting was provided by a coal oil lantern or a lamp. The table was used for eating, of course, but also for playing dominoes or cards and writing an occasional letter home. Heat, when needed, came from the fireplace. Such sparse furnishings reflected the simple lifestyle and few personal possessions of these restless men.

In 1889, Robert Ben Masterson purchased 40,000 acres in Knox and King counties on which the bunkhouse was situated. His daughter, Mrs. D.S. Kritser, said the family lived in Fort Worth but spent summers on the ranch. Although girls were not allowed in the bunkhouse, she said she peeked in sometimes. She saw iron bedsteads with springs and mattresses covered by the cowboys’ bedrolls made of a tarpaulin with soogans—heavy wool or cotton quilts—and a pillow. She also saw dirty socks, a wooden table and chairs with cowhide seats, and rugs made from the hides of lobos. On the porch was a bucket of water, a bar of soap and a drying towel hanging on a nail nearby.

The Masterson JY Bunkhouse was considered a good one by those who lived in it. Its walls and fireplace were made of limestone and the interior floor was wood. Beaded ceiling board was overhead. Records suggest that in 1887, stone was added leveling the walls, and a gabled roof replaced a flat or slightly slanted roofline. The bunkhouse was further modified when a door on the west side was changed to a window. A covered porch was constructed, along with a tongue and groove floor. A trap door to the right of the door opens to a dirt cellar, which reinforces the likelihood that the bunkhouse was originally a dugout.

Information about the bunkhouse suggests it was built in 1879 on the same location where buffalo hunters had made camp in earlier years. The unmortared native rock bunkhouse originally was part of the 8 Ranch. (A large 8 is carved below the fireplace mantle.)

When Masterson acquired the property as part of his JY Ranch, sources suggest the building was used as both a bunkhouse and a cookshack. The ranch was passed to Masterson’s son, R.B. Jr., then in 1956 it was purchased by Ed Lowrance. He and his family, in 1971, gave the bunkhouse to the National Ranching Heritage Center, where it stands for all the structures that served as temporary homes for roaming cowboys.