Arizona in the Saddle October 2015 Volume 2 Issue 12 | Page 31
Johnnie once said in an interview, “Doing this
for four years, you are bound to get on a lot
of bucking horses. You count these horses,
and the horses I rode on the range, in the
Wild West Shows, in the rodeos, add all these
together and I don’t believe anybody alive has
ridden any more horses than I have.”
Willard Porter reiterated the sentiment,
writing, “(Johnnie Mullins) rode more broncs
in a lifetime than any other human being.”
After leaving the arena life, Mullins spent the balance of his years
doing what he was born to do—be a cowboy. He worked on ranches
and rode daily till he was almost ninety-years of age!
Before retiring in 1971, he had worked seventeen years for the Green
Cattle Company northwest of Prescott, Arizona. In 1969, the Prescott
Evening Courier did an article on Johnnie, touting his as “among
the last of the great American cowboys.” and that “at 85, he was still
working on a ranch and was horseback daily.”
Johnnie Mullins was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western
Heritage Museum Hall of Fame in 1975. He was one of only four
persons ever inducted while still living. In an interview he said, “I
guess they got tired of waiting on me to die.”
Like all of us will at some point, he did pass. The life-long cowboy
died in 1978 after only being officially retired for a few years. He
was ninety-three. His saddle and spurs were sent to the Cowboy
Hall of Fame.
It is easy to see why spur manufacturers wanted to associate their
spurs with the great Johnnie Mullins, a cowboy who had a top-hand
reputation in many fields of cowboying— anywhere he went. Perhaps
he actually designed the spurs bearing his name and shared the design
with the various makers? Who knows for sure. There are a lot of
opinions out there, but no concrete evidence I could find. Research
was not readily available on this subject. What we do know is that his
name will forever live on as long as there are cowboy historians and
spur collectors out there.
W
estern t rading P ost
MONTHLY AUCTION!
OCT. 17th @ 11:00AM
Cowboy & Indian: Memorabilia, Collectibles,
Southwestern Antiques & Misc. Items
BID LIVE OR ABSENTEE - IN PERSON OR ONLINE
For more info: Western Trading Post
403 N. Florence St. • Casa Grande, AZ 85122
520-426-7702 • TotallyWestern.com
Buy, Sell, Trade, Pawn: Cowboy and Native American
Indian items, Americana & Antiques.
We deal in: Native American Jewelry, Turquoise, Navajo Textiles, Baskets, Bits,
Spurs, Antique Guns, Old West and Arizona Antiques, Gold and Silver Scrap,
Old Silver Coins. We will look at one item or an entire collection!
AZintheSaddle.com
A Few of the Items:
• Jewelry • Navajo Rugs
• Old Spurs • Original Art
• Much More!
October 2015
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