Pecos Bill

Pecos Bill is an American cowboy, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tales of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Their stories were probably invented by Edward O'Reilly in the early 20th Century and are considered to be an example of fakelore. Pecos Bill was a late addition to the "big man" idea of characters such as Paul Bunyan or John Henry.

The first stories first published in 1916 by Edward O'Reilly for The Century Magazine, and collected and reprinted in 1923 in the book Saga of Pecos Bill (1923). O'Reilly said they were part of an oral tradition told by cowboys during the westward expansion and settlement of the southwest including Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. However American folklorist Richard M. Dorson found that O'Reilly invented the stories as "fakelore", and later writers either borrowed tales from O'Reilly or added further adventures of their own invention to the cycle. One of the most well known versions of the Pecos Bill stories is by James Cloyd Bowman in Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time (1937) which won the Newbery Honor in 1938, and republished in 2007.

Edward "Tex" O'Reilly co-authored a cartoon strip with cartoonist Jack A Warren also known as Alonzo Vincent Warren, between 1929 and 1938. When O' Reilly died in 1938, Warren began a strip titled "Pecos Pete." This was a story about "Pecos Bill'" who had received a "lump on the naggan" which caused him amnesia. The cartoons originally were published in 'The Sun' and were later syndicated.

Pecos Bill made the leap to film in the 1948 Disney animated feature Melody Time. He was portrayed by Patrick Swayze in Disney's 1995 film Tall Tale.

"Pecos Bill" was also the nickname of Civil War general William Shafter, although this was before O'Reilly created the legend. Shafter was considered a hero in Texas and even had some legendary poetry written about how tough he was.

Like many tall tales, Pecos Bill stories involve combinations of super feats of courage and prowess (such as riding a tornado whirlwind like a bronco and using a rattlesnake for a lasso) and explaining natural phenomena (such as why coyotes howl at the moon, digging the Rio Grande, and how the Painted Desert became so colorful).

According to the legend, Pecos Bill was born in Texas in the 1830's. Pecos Bill was traveling in a covered wagon as an infant when he fell out unnoticed by the rest of his family near the Pecos River. He was taken in by a pack of coyotes who were said to have raised him.

Years later he was found by his brother, who convinced him he was not a coyote himself.

He grew up to become a cowboy and has a horse, Widow Maker (so named, because no other man except Pecos Bill could ride him and survive, thus leaving the wife of any married man who tried, a widow). Pecos Bill also had a love interest named Slue-Foot Sue, both Widow Maker and Slue-Foot Sue are equally as idealized as Pecos Bill. It is also said Pecos sometimes rode a mountain lion instead of a horse.

After a courtship with Slue-Foot Sue where, among other things, Pecos Bill shoots all the stars from the sky, except for one which becomes the Lone Star, he proposes to Sue who insisted on riding Widow Maker sometime before, during or after the wedding depending on variations in the story. Widow Maker, jealous of no longer having Bill's undivided attention, bounces Sue off, who lands on her bustle which begins bouncing her higher and higher, eventually hitting her head on the moon following a failed attempt to lasso her because Widow Maker didn't want her on his back again. After Slue-Foot Sue had been bouncing for days, Pecos Bill realized that she would starve to death, so he lassoed her with the rattlesnake and brought her back down. Though it is said that Bill was married many times, Widow Maker knew what he did to her was wrong so he apologized. Bowman's version of the story are more congenial, with Sue eventually recovering from the bounces, but so traumatized by the experience she flicks off cowboys and Bill.