101 Ranch Wild West Show

Photo Credit: Unknown
Date: 06 May 1929

Named for its cattle brand, the 101 Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before statehood, established by Colonel George Washington Miller, a veteran of the Confederate Army, in 1879. After relocating the original ranch in 1892, Miller leased 100,000 acres of land and built the largest diversified farm and cattle ranch in the United States and one of the early focal points of the oil rush in northeastern Oklahoma. The 200 cowhands working the ranch, which included Bill Pickett and his famous "bull-dogging" technique for wrestling cattle to the ground, developed a reputation for excellence, and whenever they competed in the local round-up competitions, they usually won. When George Miller died in 1903, his three sons, Joseph, George Jr. and Zack, took over operation of the ranch. Soon after, neighbor Major Gordon W. Lillie, who performed as Pawnee Bill, motivated the Millers to produce the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. But the Miller Brothers would come late into Wild West Show business and suffered financially along with the other shows after the invention of motion pictures.

Their show had more problems than most in a business that was harsh in the best of times. During their first year on the circuit, they suffered a serious railroad accident. Later several members of their cast contracted typhoid fever. In 1908, when Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill combined their shows into an extravaganza that broke records at Madison Square Gardens in New York City, the Miller Brothers took their show abroad. In England, the British military confiscated most of the 101's horses, stagecoaches and automobiles to build up for war as tensions were building related to the pending World War. When the Millers' show toured in Germany, authorities arrested some of their Oglala Sioux performers on suspicion of being Serbian spies, and they were never seen again. A frantic Zack Miller managed to get the rest of the cast out of Germany via Norway, and then to England. Once the cast returned to Oklahoma, the eldest brother Joe Miller refused to pay the Native American cast overtime. As a result, the entire Native American cast quit the show.

Source: Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture