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Having been a bit of a tomboy in my early years, I was always fascinated by cowboys. I didn’t just admire them—I downright wanted to be one. The idea of riding horses all day, wrangling cattle like it was a full-time cardio workout, and then sleeping under a blanket of stars (no mosquitoes in my fantasy version, of course) seemed like the perfect career path for a six-year-old with scabby knees and a knack for climbing trees. Whatever my biological reality, I was convinced I could grow up to be a cowboy!
On our recent road trip, we stopped at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and the Oklahoma Land Run Memorial in Oklahoma City. What a treat to come face-to-face with my childhood heroes—though this time they were bronzed in statue form rather than galloping across a Saturday afternoon movie matinee. Turns out I had been far more enamored with Hollywood’s version of the cowboy than I realized. I could name more than a few of those characters, which is both impressive and a little embarrassing. (Apparently, I really did pay attention to reruns.)
But here’s where the grown-up lens changes things. As kids, we saw cowboy life as rugged independence, all dust and adventure. As adults, we understand that for Native American tribes, this same period brought loss, displacement, and devastation. The land runs—which Hollywood could spin into slapstick chaos with runaway wagons and pratfalling prospectors—were in reality a brutal scramble: 50,000 people racing on horseback, in wagons, and on foot to claim land that was never truly “unclaimed.” It already belonged to someone, and that someone was being pushed aside. The museum did a good job of showing both sides—celebrating grit and ingenuity, while also acknowledging the cost borne by Native peoples.
Walking away, I felt the strange mix of nostalgia and responsibility. It’s one thing to remember the stars in a cowboy’s sky; it’s another to remember the shadows cast on the ground. And maybe that’s the real legacy—understanding that the stories we grew up with can hold both admiration and reckoning. Cowboys might have been my childhood heroes, but history reminds me to tip my hat to those whose voices were drowned out by the sound of pounding hooves.