If you ever had an interest in the history of rodeo, I’m sure you know the name Foghorn Clancy. He wrote a good book about seventy-five years ago named “My Fifty Years in Rodeo”. The book covers 1897 to 1947 and his history in rodeo during that time. However, he tells, from time to time, about many other cowboys and cowgirls from that early era. I use it often in my research, which is endless, but the one thing he didn’t do is put the year that some of his experiences happened. But the date wasn’t important to Foghorn. He was just remembering his experiences in rodeo. His book is now a collector’s item, by Naylor Press, and it will cost $175 or more if you can find a copy. Many of you may have probably not read his book so I thought I might tell you a little more about this amazing, forward thinking important man in early rodeo.
Frederick Melton Clancy was born, April 4, 1882, in Phenix City, Alabama. Two days after Fred’s birth his father died. He was the youngest of four boys, the oldest was seven. His mother went to worked in a cotton mill. He was sent to school at five, but at eight, he felt he should be helping the family financially and quit school and worked at the mill. His mother moved to Blackland, Texas, when he was ten. The following year she married a farmer/rancher and the family moved to the farm. Frederick got hired to work on a ranch, he had no use for the farm, and after four years of cowboying he found a larger ranch that hired him to cowboy. San Angelo, Texas, had a riding and roping contest and he and the other ranch hands went and entered. Fred got dumped by a saddle bronc! He said, “That was probably the best thing that had happened to me because that bronc pitched me right in to an announcer’s job!”
In 1898 America declared war on Spain and sixteen-year-old Frederick went to Mineral Wells to join the Army. He was turned down. He had bragged on the ranch so much about joining he was to embarrassed to go back to the ranch. He took a job, in town, selling newspapers after they were brought in from Dallas on the morning train. He enjoyed building up the headlines by yelling them out. Someone said his voice “sounded like a foghorn at sea." The nickname ‘Foghorn’ stuck and he was called ‘Foghorn’ from then on.
After that he began moving from one place to another, wherever he could get a job announcing. He even went on a boxing tour announcing in the ring. He went with riding and roping contests, some sideshows, but mostly cowboy shows. In 1902, he was in Oklahoma City at a cattleman’s convention. Zack Mulhall was an official and responsible for the activities at the convention. Mulhall knew how to have a rip-roarin’ time. He brought in a band from Saint Louis dressed western, and the day before the contest was a big parade. In the middle of the parade this girl rode her pony on to the sidewalk and right into the bank and laid down a check to be cashed by the cashier. That was Mulhall’s daughter, Lucille! The next day at the roping contest Foghorn called out the times. Later he announced a polo game between a championship team and some of the competing cowboys.
Foghorn continued to announce events that eventually became defined as rodeos, but he also heard about a new town that was being developed called Prague. He knew it paid well, and went to work selling town lots for the First State Bank of Prague. That didn’t last long.
Foghorn married Alice Cowen of Joplin, Missouri, in 1905. They had five children: Fred in 1906, Kathryn in 1908, Frank in 1911, Helen in 1914 and the youngest, John Patrick, 1920.
By 1905, he had drifted into Texas and joined Booger Red Privett’s Wild West Show. Then he went to Dublin, Texas, to the Old Settlers Reunion contest, By 1908, he was in Dewey, Oklahoma, announcing for Joe A. Bartles. He also sold sites in another new town in Oklahoma called Wewoka.
Foghorn moved to Tulsa where he found announcer’s jobs with races, ball games, and some commentary with silent movies, but he also took a job as a deputy state enforcement officer. They raided hideouts, which was a dangerous job, and he quickly looked for other work.
By 1911, he was announcing rodeos full time at State and County fairs. At the Kansas State Fair, he met President Taft. By 1916, Cheyenne Frontier Days leader T. Joe Cahill asked him to announce. Later that year he announced the New York Stampede, put on by Guy Weadick. It ran twelve days, and Foghorn’s salary was $350. Weadick had hired five other announcers to help him, but after the first day of Foghorn’s announcing, Weadick let them all go. He knew he could count on Foghorn.
In 1917, he got a telegram from Tex Austin that he needed Foghorn to announce the El Paso Round Up and do the publicity for the event. Foghorn became very adept at promoting upcoming events. He then took the announcers job with the Fort Worth’s first Southwest Exposition and Fat Stock Show. Tex Austin then had Foghorn come to the Cowboys’ RoundUp in Las Vegas, NM, a three-day event over the Fourth of July.
Foghorn’s next job was the Medicine Hat Rodeo in Alberta, Canada. Weadick had bragged about how good he was announcing for him in New York. He then went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Ranchers Fair & Stampede, put on by Ad Day. Followed by The Swift Current, Saskatchewan’s Provincial Exposition and Fair, and the Stampede at Maple Creek in Canada, and the Agricultural and Livestock Fair in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Foghorn left Canada and went to Tucumcari, New Mexico, Cowboys’ General Round Up; Fort Morgan, Colorado, Frontier Days; Silver Creek, Nebraska, Frontier Days; Grand Island, Nebraska, Fair; Louisiana State Fair at Shreveport; and the National Farm and Livestock Show at New Orleans. All of these events were held in 1917!
He started 1918 with Tex Austin’s Wichita (Kansas) Forum from January 23 to 26, which was in an indoor arena. Austin said he believed this was only the second real rodeo held indoors in a building. Later Foghorn was called back to Fort Worth to their first indoor rodeo as he had done so well there the year before.
In August of 1918, Foghorn was working at Tucumcari, NM, where he met Frank Moore, who was peddling photos for R.R. Doubleday. Doubleday was the first photographer to photograph rodeo contestants, make a print overnight, and sell it the next day at the rodeo. Moore was learning as much as he could about rodeo, and how it was done by successful promoters and committees. Six years later Moore went with Tex Austin to the first London Rodeo, then went to assist Austin at his next two rodeos in New York. At Tex Austin’s Chicago Rodeo, Moore was still assisting Austin with publicity, but he also helped negotiate the deal for Colonel W.T. Johnson to get the Madison Square Garden rodeo in 1931. After that Moore became the Rodeo Manager at Madison Square Garden. Foghorn reported that Moore made strict rules for rodeo but never made enemies and always remained an unassuming manager.
The 1922 rodeo season found Foghorn doing successful work as a producer of publicity, as well as an announcer. January of 1923, he was made manager of the Southwest Exposition and Fat Stock Show at Fort Worth. He also did the same for the ‘Passing of the West’ that was held in Washington D.C.
Foghorn Clancy had truly learned rodeo from one end to the other, and knew how important, good publicity and early promotions could help an upcoming rodeo, especially in the number of spectators that attended. He also had met and learned the sport from some of the most successful producers of events during that era. The years following were much the same without the worry of those ‘slow in between’ times. Foghorn’s talents were very much in demand.
Not only was he great at announcing, publicity and promotional endeavors, he also was a forward-thinking cowboy. He kept scores at rodeos in all events and saved those numbers. After he retired from rodeo, he put out booklets that included the major rodeos in the United States and who were the cowboys and cowgirls that won the most monies each year. His booklets were filled with all kinds of rodeo memorabilia, including the winners of that year’s major rodeos, information regarding the most well-known rodeos, lists of trick riders, trick ropers, rodeo clowns, announcers, etc. for each year. He began these informative little brochures in 1946 chocked full of rodeo history and he continued printing them yearly through 1953.
Back in those days there was very little written in newspapers about those that won money in rodeos. Hoofs and Horns magazine was about the only consistent way of hearing what was happening in rodeo. Although rodeo was a wonderful sport, in those days nothing was ever put on the Sports pages of newspapers. If it was even mentioned, it was usually mentioned in the newspaper area that also mentioned other things that were happening such as carnivals or circuses, not sports. It is my suspicion that most sports reporters didn’t know rodeo rules for each event well enough to really know how to report the results or interview a top cowboy, since each event had different requirements and rules.
After the 1936 season of rodeo, Foghorn was on his ranch in Texas when he received a letter from an old friend, Herbert S. Maddy who was the promoting representative for Colonel Jim Eskew’s J E Ranch and asked Foghorn if he would come East, to Waverly, New York, and take over the exclusive handling of the publicity for the Colonel Jim Eskew Rodeo for five weeks. Foghorn went to the East Coast where Colonel Jim Eskew had his rodeo stock and cowboys. The five weeks Maddy offered ended up lasting until 1957. Foghorn sold his Texas ranch and moved to Waverly permanently. But Foghorn did many other promotional and announcing jobs during those twenty-one years. He also was part of the publicity team for Madison Square Garden Rodeo that was held in the fall of each year, plus other major rodeos held yearly such as Houston, Texas.
Foghorn’s life had become totally involved in rodeo. He was considered the first announcer, long before the sound systems were ever used. His curiosity about all things rodeo was also the catalyst for him to be known as the ‘go to guy’ for the best early promotion for a rodeo coming in the future, and for doing great publicity, as well. By that time, he had developed friendships with ‘the right people’ and knew how to get articles, as well as headlines, for upcoming rodeo events, and various things that happened during the rodeos.
Frederick Mellon Clancy better known as Foghorn died in Waverly, September 28, 1957. His wife had preceded him in death, April 14, 1941. Both were buried in Glenwood Mausoleum at Wavery, New York.
When Foghorn moved back East to Waverly, New York, he left boxes of memorabilia in the care of a Texas sculptor, until Foghorn could get back to Texas and get them. Unfortunately, Foghorn never came back to retrieve them. Long after Foghorn’s death Jack Long, a cowboy who rode roughstock, was a trick roper, but also made saddles and boots, and was a very capable artist, was asked by that sculptor if he might be interested in Foghorn Clancy’s memorabilia. Jack’s rodeo career was such a varied life, and his interest in the history of the sport was so strong, he immediately said he would definitely be interested. Jack Long received these boxes and went through them paper by paper, photo by photo. It was a treasure-trove of important memorabilia. When I met Jack Long, he was retired, lived in San Antonio his whole life, and he was a wealth of information and assistance for me, in my earliest years of doing research and writing about rodeo and rodeo people. He offered to give me the Hoofs and Horns magazines he had subscribed to in his rodeo history but also had earlier Hoofs and Horns magazines that had ‘Foghorn Clancy’s name on them. I was thrilled to get them. I made copies of all of them, because the paper was so fragile, and I have used the copies for years doing research. I also sold a set of the Hoofs and Horns to the Dickinson Research Center at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and gave the monies to Jack’s widow. Thank God for those people, like Foghorn Clancy, who recorded early rodeo information.
Frederick Melton Clancy was born, April 4, 1882, in Phenix City, Alabama. Two days after Fred’s birth his father died. He was the youngest of four boys, the oldest was seven. His mother went to worked in a cotton mill. He was sent to school at five, but at eight, he felt he should be helping the family financially and quit school and worked at the mill. His mother moved to Blackland, Texas, when he was ten. The following year she married a farmer/rancher and the family moved to the farm. Frederick got hired to work on a ranch, he had no use for the farm, and after four years of cowboying he found a larger ranch that hired him to cowboy. San Angelo, Texas, had a riding and roping contest and he and the other ranch hands went and entered. Fred got dumped by a saddle bronc! He said, “That was probably the best thing that had happened to me because that bronc pitched me right in to an announcer’s job!”
In 1898 America declared war on Spain and sixteen-year-old Frederick went to Mineral Wells to join the Army. He was turned down. He had bragged on the ranch so much about joining he was to embarrassed to go back to the ranch. He took a job, in town, selling newspapers after they were brought in from Dallas on the morning train. He enjoyed building up the headlines by yelling them out. Someone said his voice “sounded like a foghorn at sea." The nickname ‘Foghorn’ stuck and he was called ‘Foghorn’ from then on.
After that he began moving from one place to another, wherever he could get a job announcing. He even went on a boxing tour announcing in the ring. He went with riding and roping contests, some sideshows, but mostly cowboy shows. In 1902, he was in Oklahoma City at a cattleman’s convention. Zack Mulhall was an official and responsible for the activities at the convention. Mulhall knew how to have a rip-roarin’ time. He brought in a band from Saint Louis dressed western, and the day before the contest was a big parade. In the middle of the parade this girl rode her pony on to the sidewalk and right into the bank and laid down a check to be cashed by the cashier. That was Mulhall’s daughter, Lucille! The next day at the roping contest Foghorn called out the times. Later he announced a polo game between a championship team and some of the competing cowboys.
Foghorn continued to announce events that eventually became defined as rodeos, but he also heard about a new town that was being developed called Prague. He knew it paid well, and went to work selling town lots for the First State Bank of Prague. That didn’t last long.
Foghorn married Alice Cowen of Joplin, Missouri, in 1905. They had five children: Fred in 1906, Kathryn in 1908, Frank in 1911, Helen in 1914 and the youngest, John Patrick, 1920.
By 1905, he had drifted into Texas and joined Booger Red Privett’s Wild West Show. Then he went to Dublin, Texas, to the Old Settlers Reunion contest, By 1908, he was in Dewey, Oklahoma, announcing for Joe A. Bartles. He also sold sites in another new town in Oklahoma called Wewoka.
Foghorn moved to Tulsa where he found announcer’s jobs with races, ball games, and some commentary with silent movies, but he also took a job as a deputy state enforcement officer. They raided hideouts, which was a dangerous job, and he quickly looked for other work.
By 1911, he was announcing rodeos full time at State and County fairs. At the Kansas State Fair, he met President Taft. By 1916, Cheyenne Frontier Days leader T. Joe Cahill asked him to announce. Later that year he announced the New York Stampede, put on by Guy Weadick. It ran twelve days, and Foghorn’s salary was $350. Weadick had hired five other announcers to help him, but after the first day of Foghorn’s announcing, Weadick let them all go. He knew he could count on Foghorn.
In 1917, he got a telegram from Tex Austin that he needed Foghorn to announce the El Paso Round Up and do the publicity for the event. Foghorn became very adept at promoting upcoming events. He then took the announcers job with the Fort Worth’s first Southwest Exposition and Fat Stock Show. Tex Austin then had Foghorn come to the Cowboys’ RoundUp in Las Vegas, NM, a three-day event over the Fourth of July.
Foghorn’s next job was the Medicine Hat Rodeo in Alberta, Canada. Weadick had bragged about how good he was announcing for him in New York. He then went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Ranchers Fair & Stampede, put on by Ad Day. Followed by The Swift Current, Saskatchewan’s Provincial Exposition and Fair, and the Stampede at Maple Creek in Canada, and the Agricultural and Livestock Fair in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Foghorn left Canada and went to Tucumcari, New Mexico, Cowboys’ General Round Up; Fort Morgan, Colorado, Frontier Days; Silver Creek, Nebraska, Frontier Days; Grand Island, Nebraska, Fair; Louisiana State Fair at Shreveport; and the National Farm and Livestock Show at New Orleans. All of these events were held in 1917!
He started 1918 with Tex Austin’s Wichita (Kansas) Forum from January 23 to 26, which was in an indoor arena. Austin said he believed this was only the second real rodeo held indoors in a building. Later Foghorn was called back to Fort Worth to their first indoor rodeo as he had done so well there the year before.
In August of 1918, Foghorn was working at Tucumcari, NM, where he met Frank Moore, who was peddling photos for R.R. Doubleday. Doubleday was the first photographer to photograph rodeo contestants, make a print overnight, and sell it the next day at the rodeo. Moore was learning as much as he could about rodeo, and how it was done by successful promoters and committees. Six years later Moore went with Tex Austin to the first London Rodeo, then went to assist Austin at his next two rodeos in New York. At Tex Austin’s Chicago Rodeo, Moore was still assisting Austin with publicity, but he also helped negotiate the deal for Colonel W.T. Johnson to get the Madison Square Garden rodeo in 1931. After that Moore became the Rodeo Manager at Madison Square Garden. Foghorn reported that Moore made strict rules for rodeo but never made enemies and always remained an unassuming manager.
The 1922 rodeo season found Foghorn doing successful work as a producer of publicity, as well as an announcer. January of 1923, he was made manager of the Southwest Exposition and Fat Stock Show at Fort Worth. He also did the same for the ‘Passing of the West’ that was held in Washington D.C.
Foghorn Clancy had truly learned rodeo from one end to the other, and knew how important, good publicity and early promotions could help an upcoming rodeo, especially in the number of spectators that attended. He also had met and learned the sport from some of the most successful producers of events during that era. The years following were much the same without the worry of those ‘slow in between’ times. Foghorn’s talents were very much in demand.
Not only was he great at announcing, publicity and promotional endeavors, he also was a forward-thinking cowboy. He kept scores at rodeos in all events and saved those numbers. After he retired from rodeo, he put out booklets that included the major rodeos in the United States and who were the cowboys and cowgirls that won the most monies each year. His booklets were filled with all kinds of rodeo memorabilia, including the winners of that year’s major rodeos, information regarding the most well-known rodeos, lists of trick riders, trick ropers, rodeo clowns, announcers, etc. for each year. He began these informative little brochures in 1946 chocked full of rodeo history and he continued printing them yearly through 1953.
Back in those days there was very little written in newspapers about those that won money in rodeos. Hoofs and Horns magazine was about the only consistent way of hearing what was happening in rodeo. Although rodeo was a wonderful sport, in those days nothing was ever put on the Sports pages of newspapers. If it was even mentioned, it was usually mentioned in the newspaper area that also mentioned other things that were happening such as carnivals or circuses, not sports. It is my suspicion that most sports reporters didn’t know rodeo rules for each event well enough to really know how to report the results or interview a top cowboy, since each event had different requirements and rules.
After the 1936 season of rodeo, Foghorn was on his ranch in Texas when he received a letter from an old friend, Herbert S. Maddy who was the promoting representative for Colonel Jim Eskew’s J E Ranch and asked Foghorn if he would come East, to Waverly, New York, and take over the exclusive handling of the publicity for the Colonel Jim Eskew Rodeo for five weeks. Foghorn went to the East Coast where Colonel Jim Eskew had his rodeo stock and cowboys. The five weeks Maddy offered ended up lasting until 1957. Foghorn sold his Texas ranch and moved to Waverly permanently. But Foghorn did many other promotional and announcing jobs during those twenty-one years. He also was part of the publicity team for Madison Square Garden Rodeo that was held in the fall of each year, plus other major rodeos held yearly such as Houston, Texas.
Foghorn’s life had become totally involved in rodeo. He was considered the first announcer, long before the sound systems were ever used. His curiosity about all things rodeo was also the catalyst for him to be known as the ‘go to guy’ for the best early promotion for a rodeo coming in the future, and for doing great publicity, as well. By that time, he had developed friendships with ‘the right people’ and knew how to get articles, as well as headlines, for upcoming rodeo events, and various things that happened during the rodeos.
Frederick Mellon Clancy better known as Foghorn died in Waverly, September 28, 1957. His wife had preceded him in death, April 14, 1941. Both were buried in Glenwood Mausoleum at Wavery, New York.
When Foghorn moved back East to Waverly, New York, he left boxes of memorabilia in the care of a Texas sculptor, until Foghorn could get back to Texas and get them. Unfortunately, Foghorn never came back to retrieve them. Long after Foghorn’s death Jack Long, a cowboy who rode roughstock, was a trick roper, but also made saddles and boots, and was a very capable artist, was asked by that sculptor if he might be interested in Foghorn Clancy’s memorabilia. Jack’s rodeo career was such a varied life, and his interest in the history of the sport was so strong, he immediately said he would definitely be interested. Jack Long received these boxes and went through them paper by paper, photo by photo. It was a treasure-trove of important memorabilia. When I met Jack Long, he was retired, lived in San Antonio his whole life, and he was a wealth of information and assistance for me, in my earliest years of doing research and writing about rodeo and rodeo people. He offered to give me the Hoofs and Horns magazines he had subscribed to in his rodeo history but also had earlier Hoofs and Horns magazines that had ‘Foghorn Clancy’s name on them. I was thrilled to get them. I made copies of all of them, because the paper was so fragile, and I have used the copies for years doing research. I also sold a set of the Hoofs and Horns to the Dickinson Research Center at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and gave the monies to Jack’s widow. Thank God for those people, like Foghorn Clancy, who recorded early rodeo information.
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