History of the Chuck Wagon

My dad worked on big ranches that ran a wagon...one thing that always irritated him in movies was guys riding up to the wagon in a cloud of dust...no real cook would let that happen...more than one threatened to shoot the first cowboy who raised dust around his beans and bacon!
 
Wonder who they guys in dark clothes were? They look sort of military. Everybody else seems to know better. I can barely make out "?? Expedition of 1870" in the lower left of the picture.

They are military - as Nate says, the escorts for a group of geologists. I thought it was the Washburn Expedition, exploring what is now Yellowstone National Park but it's the next one - Hayden's. Quite a story with them! Check out the dogs - that's what the American Bull Dog used to look like. (Think they're eating what those dogs helped them catch...) What a great picture.
 
Testing material used by states I'm familiar with is usually public domain. Of course, that doesn't mean it's been posted online. They don't want the actual material the students test on to be online for obvious reasons. No cheating allowed.
All good people pass and wonderful knowledge goes as their hard work disappears as their websites :frown:
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They are military - as Nate says, the escorts for a group of geologists. I thought it was the Washburn Expedition, exploring what is now Yellowstone National Park but it's the next one - Hayden's. Quite a story with them! Check out the dogs - that's what the American Bull Dog used to look like. (Think they're eating what those dogs helped them catch...) What a great picture.
One interesting thing one of our uniform experts might know--when did the US start issuing dark blue shirts? I'd read somewhere that they were gray up until the 1880s.
 
One interesting thing one of our uniform experts might know--when did the US start issuing dark blue shirts? I'd read somewhere that they were gray up until the 1880s.

I think it was kind of wear-what-you-got until 1872, when Congress authorized expenditures for more uniform clothing. That's when everybody got dark blue shirts. The army surplus was sold off then - and quite a few cowboys were decked out in it, at least until their next paycheck! There was quite a lot of experimentation in clothing, particularly winter wear - the West was not the East!
 
When I was a kid, 40s & 50s, we had a "Chuck Box" that would fit in the trunk of a car with the lid removed and the women would come out and cook for us as we worked cattle. BTW if you can find a copy of "Cattle Kings of Texas" the chapter on Goodnight/Loving is the script for "Lonesome Dove" but it is not plagiarism. It is the culture Larry grew up in. The Chisholm Trail went through where his home was built. Many of his best books, "Horseman Pass By" (the movie Hud), "The Last Picture Show", "Lonesome Dove", aren't fiction, they are astute observation told very well.
 

I found this guys channel on YouTube. I find it a fun watch , id find most of his recipes hard to replicate in the suburbs where I live but his channel is entertaining none the less.
 
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