Frank T. Hopkins, alias "The Laramie Kid," may have been a fraud, according to evidence revealed by researchers at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center (AHC). Hopkins is the subject of a forthcoming movie depicting him as a western adventurer and one of world's preeminent endurance horse riders.
A film crew for the History Channel recently visited the AHC for a documentary exploring an example of accepted "history" that has been based on what now appears to be a "tissue of lies," according to AHC Associate Director Rick Ewig.
Two researchers for the Long Rider's Guild, CuCullhaine and Basha O'Reilly, say a collection of AHC papers played an important role in their committed effort to set the historical record straight. The AHC provided the "smoking gun" that allowed them to "make the final breakthrough," said Basha O'Reilly. The documentary, tentatively titled "The Legend of Frank T. Hopkins," will air this fall.
Biographer Charles B. Roth is responsible for creating the Frank Hopkins legend, according to the Long Rider"šs Guild Web site. Roth's magazine articles in the 1930s lifted the obscure Hopkins into national prominence with such memorable quotes as, "Living in New York there's a man named Frank Hopkins, a remarkable horseman, and the last of the greatest endurance riders."
Earlier this year, the O'Reillys learned of a major motion picture being produced based on Hopkins' life. Hopkins, who died in 1951, is cited in several books as an endurance rider, a frontiersman, U.S. cavalry dispatch rider, slayer of outlaws and great friend of Buffalo Bill.
The researchers pursued the story in locations where Hopkins claimed to have won marathon horse races, including Europe and the Middle East as well as Wyoming. They came to UW to review Hopkins' annotated scrapbooks, articles and letters from historian Robert Easton, who, while planning to write a book about Hopkins, had received these materials from Hopkins' widow, Gertrude. In studying the materials, Easton became skeptical about Hopkins' claims.
Ewig, an authority on Western history and particularly on the popular image of the West, said Hopkins may have lived his entire life in the eastern United States. Ewig believes that the mythic image of the West may have helped Hopkins "avoid hard questions when he began writing the accepted version of his life" in autobiographical letters and articles. For example, Ewig noted one of the inconsistencies was that Hopkins claimed to have been born in Ft. Laramie in 1865 and later was a dispatch rider between forts Laramie and Kearney, which was abandoned after 1868. If this were true, Ewig said, Hopkins was only three years old at the time.
The AHC is the University's repository of manuscript and special collections, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West environment and conservation, the mining and petroleum industries, air and ground transportation, the performing arts, journalism and U.S. military history.
For more information about the AHC's historical collections, call (307) 766-4114 or visit its Web site at www.uwyo.edu/ahc/.-30-
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