More Drawings By George Ostrom Found, Famous For Creating Wyoming’s Bucking Horse

In the 1950s, George Ostrom stood on the dirt floor of his log garage, paint brush in hand. Antelope, deer and Wyoming wildflowers emerged in the scene before him as he painted a mural. 

Not happy with the results, he painted over the whole scene with white and began again, capturing the world around him in Sheridan County. 

“I always heard stories about him and just the things that he has done,” his grandson William Ostrom said. “I used to go hunting with him, but we didn't know him for any other reason than he was our grandfather. “

The many accomplishments of his grandfather would have remained shrouded in mystery except that Ostrom had captured these adventures with pen and paper, leaving behind a legacy for the world. 

These drawings range from far away battles to the homestead in Wyoming. 

The drawings were hidden in obscurity well after Ostrom’s death, but his family has in recent years been combing through his hundreds of works. Last April, they created a website to showcase his work, and it has attracted attention from people inside and outside the state.

Early Homesteader

Born in 1888, George Nicholas Ostrom said he was raised on cornbread and side pork in Iowa. To help his family out, he trapped skunks as a kid and as a teenager, went to North Dakota and Texas to plow fields with the ‘modern’ steam tractors and hauled grain on a cattle drive.

Back home in Iowa, the teenager played in the high school band and got a job in a commercial art company. He later worked in a studio in Minneapolis, creating the foundation for his love of capturing the world around him in sketches.

A few years later, Ostrom arrived in Sheridan, Wyoming, where an uncle lived. 

It was at the rodeo in Sheridan in 1913 that Ostrom rescued an abused Indian pony he named Redwing. That same year he joined the Wyoming National Guard and, from 1914 to 1916, served in the Mexican conflict serving under General John J. Pershing. 

When he returned home to Wyoming, Redwing was waiting. Ostrom was training him when America boys were once more sent to combat. Being a bit of a prankster, Ostrom smuggled his horse with him on the train and managed to take this spirited horse across the seas to help with the war effort during World War I. 

Soldier Scenes

Ostrom never spoke of his wartime experiences in either the Mexican War as part of the National Guard or in Europe during World War I to his grandson. Yet his memories live on in both his artwork and biography, pieced together from news clippings and interviews. 

“When he was in World War one, he would literally go back and start drawing the battle that they were just in,” William Ostrom said. 

Ostrom captured everyday life for the soldiers in his art, from planning the next offensive, actual battles and to recovering from the aftermath of destruction. 

While Ostrom was fighting on the front, Redwing was being used to help train officers to ride. Although he was not around his sorrel horse, Ostrom knew Redwing was safe and he would soon feature his spunky horse in a special tribute. 

Bucking Bronco

In-between everyday survival, drawing the scenes around him or peeling potatoes, Ostrom also found time to create an insignia for his regiment.

He recalled in a 1958 interview that his provisional regiment only had numbers and no identifying insignia. Since it was not permissible in the Army to identify regiments by these numbers, the officers announced a contest for the soldiers to create their own design.

Ostrom was inspired by a memory of Redwing bucking off a major and decided to enter a bucking bronco into the contest. He was at the front of battle when he learned of the contest and said he beat it back to the rear to the surplus supplies, away from combat. 

“There the boys were painting camouflage and there was plenty of paint there and brushes,” Ostrom said. “I found the old brass drum of the band and I drew this bronco on this drum head.”

He was nearly done with his image when a wild high explosive shell “came dancing in” and knocked his brush loose. The paint left dabbles across his image that he decided would make appropriate wound stripes.

When he presented his image for the 148^th Field Artillery, the officers immediately closed the contest and adopted the design as their own. A stencil was made from the bronco just as Ostrom had drawn it and from then on everything belonging to the regiment, from road signs to shoulder patches, were marked with the bronco. 

He said that the distinctive design was so popular that the Germans also used it in jewelry designs and on their beer mugs. 

Preserving The Old West

Once he got out of the war, Ostrom continued to draw, but this time it was Western art. By 1919, Ostrom had moved permanently to Wyoming with his mother and three siblings where they homesteaded northeast of Sheridan. The area became his forever-home and inspiration for his art.

“He'd see a herd of antelope, a wolf, a building, horses and birds,” William Ostrom said. “And he would draw them. He would first pencil them in, and then he'd put ink over his original drawing.” 

Biographer Judy Slack, author of “Pioneer Preservationist Painter” wrote that George Ostrom had many interesting memories from his early years in Sheridan including having a beer with Buffalo Bill Cody at the Sheridan Inn. 

For 10 years, beginning in 1919, Ostrom had a career as a government hunter of wolves and coyotes for the predator control center. He knew the wolf well and respected how they lived, hunted and outsmarted their prey and predators. 

In later years, he became their advocate and assisted in locating the descendants of the wolves he had killed in the 1920s. 

These wolves were featured in his artwork from scenes of them preying on cattle, howling at the moon and fleeing with a trap on its foot. His signature was always accompanied by a drawing of a wolf paw print. 

Ostrom also drew the other wildlife roaming Wyoming and the 1920s farm scenes. His grandson studies these drawings, seeing a connection to his family through the art. 

“If you look at the one that we call “Taking a Break”, there's the old guy on the back of the old plow with the pipe,” William said. “We hardly ever saw my uncle without a pipe in his mouth. So, I would say that that picture was probably his brother.” 

Sharing The Art With The World

Ostrom was said by his family to never waste a piece of paper. Almost every one of his original drawings has another picture on the back of the paper where Ostrom had discarded a drawing for some reason and flipped the paper over to begin another drawing. 

His son George Jr. recalled watching his father take over the dining room table once supper was over and begin drawing whatever scene had inspired him at that particular moment. 

George Ostrom passed away in 1982 and his children inherited hundreds of his original drawings. They were stored in boxes although occasionally George Jr. would attempt to sell a few without much success. 

“Very little has ever been published about his artwork,” William said. “Most of my information actually comes from the book Judy wrote and knowing George in person.”

A year ago, William decided to share the nearly forgotten art that he believes people from all over the United States would appreciate. He made copies of the originals and began traveling to art, craft and gun shows. He also set up a website for those outside of Wyoming to also see the scenes from a nearly lost era of the Cowboy State’s history.  

“Some of them are as much as a hundred years old,” he said. “’We just sit and talk to people about the story and how the original Bucking Horse was drawn in 1918.”

The family selected some of their favorites to share, and so far have only shown the public about 30% of the artwork they have inherited. 

Thanks in part to the drawings once more making it to public display, there has been recent renewed interest in the legacy that Ostrom left behind. This month, the Sheridan Community Land Trust will be hosting “A Tribute to the Life of the Legendary George Ostrom” during their SCLT Explore History series in Sheridan and Dayton. 

“All his artwork touches somebody in some way,” Ostrom said. 

That is why he wants to make sure his grandfather’s memories are shared rather than hiding away in boxes. 

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.