Stone Gardens: Legendary bronc rider - "...when you are dead, you are a long time dead.”
- Dennis McCaslin
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Samuel Thomas Privett Jr. was born to Samuel Austin Privett (also referred to as Samuel Thomas Privett Sr.), a rancher who established the SP Ranch and Brand in Erath County, Texas, after the family moved there from Williamson County when Samuel Jr. was six years old. His mother is not named in available records.
His father died of Bright’s disease before Samuel Jr. reached age fifteen; his mother died around the same time. At least one brother survived and assisted him after his childhood accident, repeating the remark that originated his nickname. Samuel Jr. himself had no further documented ancestral details in public sources beyond his father’s ranching background in central Texas.
His mother is not named in available records. His father died of Bright’s disease before Samuel Jr. reached age fifteen; his mother died around the same time. At least one brother survived and assisted him after his childhood accident, repeating the remark that originated his nickname. Samuel Jr. himself had no further documented ancestral details in public sources beyond his father’s ranching background in central Texas.
Born on December 29, 1864, in Williamson County, Texas, Samuel grew up on family ranches where he learned to ride and rope from a young age. By twelve he had earned the description “Redheaded Kid Bronc Rider” for his bright red hair and his work breaking horses on the family operation.
On Christmas Day around 1877, at age thirteen, he and a friend attempted to create a firework by packing gunpowder into a hollow tree stump. The charge exploded prematurely, killing his friend and hurling Samuel twenty feet. The blast burned his face severely, removing parts of his eyebrows and nose, reducing his eyes to slits, and leaving him blind in one eye.
\\His brother carried him in a farm wagon to a doctor. A small boy who saw the injuries remarked, “Gee, but Red is sure a booger now, ain’t he?” The phrase stuck; his siblings began calling him Booger Red, and he adopted the name.
Recovery took six months of repeated surgeries to reopen his eyes, lips, and nostrils. By fifteen, with both parents gone, he supported
Samuel continued refining his horsemanship after the accident. Around 1888 he sold his Sabinal ranch and traveled west with an uncle to work on Billie Guest’s ranch twelve miles south of Sonora, Texas. Ranchers from the surrounding area brought wild horses for him to break; he gained a reputation for riding animals others deemed unridable and for winning wagers on those rides.
He moved to San Angelo, bought a wagon yard, and turned it into a business where owners delivered stock for him to handle. Self-conscious about his scars, he introduced himself at events as Booger Red, the ugliest man living or dead. In 1901 he and his wife launched the Booger Red Wild West Wagon Show, a traveling exhibition in which he served as the main attraction. He performed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, won twenty-three first prizes across various rodeo competitions, and later appeared in shows operated by Al G. Barnes, Buffalo Bill, and Hagenbeck-Wallace. He maintained a standing offer of one hundred dollars to anyone who could furnish a horse he could not ride; no one ever collected. His wife estimated he rode between twenty-five thousand and forty thousand broncs over his lifetime. By 1920 the family show had ended; he sold his Oklahoma ranch and livestock and retired from full-time performing in 1924.
On December 29, 1895, in Bronte, Texas, Samuel married Mary Frances “Mollie” Webb at a preacher’s house; she was fifteen and he was thirty-three. Mollie was an accomplished horsewoman who performed alongside him. They had seven children. Six reached adulthood and took part in the Wild West show with trick roping and riding acts: Walter LeRoy “Roy” Privett (born 1896), Ella May Privett (later Linton), Luther (one of a set of twins), Thomas Edward “Tommy” Privett, Bill Privett, and Alta Privett (born 1909).
The other twin, an infant daughter, did not survive. The children received limited formal schooling, none advancing past the eleventh grade, but they traveled and performed with the family outfit. The couple settled in San Angelo initially, then moved to a ranch near Miami, Oklahoma, around 1917
In early 1924 Samuel attended the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show as a spectator after retiring. When a bronc rider was thrown and the crowd began chanting his name, he was carried into the arena on the shoulders of younger cowboys and completed one final ride on a notoriously difficult horse.
Two weeks later, back home in Miami,, he died in March 1924 at age fifty-nine from Bright’s disease, the same kidney ailment that had killed his father. His family was present; his last words to his children were, “Always be honest for it pays in the long run. Have all the fun you can while you live for when you are dead, you are a long time dead.”
He is buried in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Miami, Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Cemetery records confirm the interment near his final home; the site now includes a marker inscribed with his parting advice.
