Friday, May 3, 2024
Dan Vanderburg
BRIDGE STREET HISTORY CENTER
Dan Vanderburg is a local author of historical fiction about early Texas. He is also a member of the Bridge Street History Center Board of Directors.
Granbury has its lake and water recreation opportunities, golf courses, hotels, vacation rentals and inns, fun music, entertainment and festivals around its historic square and is known state-wide as a great tourism destination. But Hood County and the surrounding area is still a very active cattle and horse country. The beautiful rolling hills and prairies surrounding the county seat is home to a number of world-class and award-winning cattle and horse ranches. It’s also rodeo country and has been for years. Some highly successful rodeo cowboys call Hood County home.
One of the winningest rodeo cowboys of all time called Cresson his home. That was Hughie J. Long. Hughie, also called “The Prongua Kid” may not have been a big man in height but he sat mighty tall in the saddle. From Prongua Saskatchewan, he was small, (no more than 5-feet, 7 inches) including his boots with at least two-inch heels) red-haired with freckles and Irish looking with steel blue eyes. He was also tough as a bull rider’s boot. By the time he came to Cresson, he already had over 15 years of rodeo experience under his belt as a champion bull and bronc rider.
When Hughie was 19 years old, he won the bronc riding championship at the Saskatchewan Rodeo. He took his winnings from the Saskatchewan event and entered the famous Calgary Stampede in 1927. That was his first time to ride the Brahmas. Afterward, he said, “That was my first introduction to humpbacked cattle. They really ironed me out.” But those “humpbacked cattle” never slowed him down. He continued to ride them and the bucking broncs all over Canada and the United States. Hughie’s skill and daring earned him the respect of his peers as he became a charter member of The Cowboy Turtles Association, the forerunner of today’s Professional Cowboys Association. Even with his limited formal education to only the third grade, he wrote the basic rules still used in bareback bronc and bull riding.
Hughie’s reputation on wild and fast horses soon drew the attention of a couple of owners of wild west shows. He accepted their offer to join the shows and traveled around the country in 1927 and 1928 performing the “Pony Express Run” and other exciting attractions. But he was soon lured back to the rodeo circuit. He accepted an invitation to participate in a 21-day rodeo staged at the Chicago World Fair in 1933. There, he took second in bareback average and third in bull riding. In the three-week event, the Prongua Kid rode all but two of his bulls, including one that crashed through a fence as Hughie stayed aboard. Much of his record through his career was never recorded but his documented winnings earned him his place in the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
By the mid 1930’s while working in Fort Worth, he became acquainted with George Glascock, the bucking bull provider for the Fort Worth Stock Show rodeo. Glascock invited Hughie to come to Cresson to train several of his colts. When he returned the trained colts, Glascock was more than pleased with the results. It didn’t take long for Hughie’s reputation as a top-notch horse trainer to get out to Glascock’s neighbors. He soon bought a house and Cresson became his home for the rest of his life as a top horse trainer and champion rodeo veteran.
For almost 100 years now, it’s been men like Hughie Long, The Prongua Kid, that kept rodeo, the true American sport, alive and well.
