The cattle were rounded up, the supplies loaded into the chuck wagon. Time for George Cluck to hit the Chisholm Trail.
But he’s not alone. His wife, Hattie is coming on the journey – so are their three young kids. Four, if you count the baby in Hattie’s belly.
For a family to ride the trail in 1871 – well, it was just about unheard of.
“…there was nothing else to do with me and the babies but to take us with him. He took all he had in the world with him, and we wanted to be together no matter what happened.”
The trip was no cakewalk. When they crossed the Red River, the strong current forced Hattie and the kids to abandon their chuck wagon and cross on horseback.
Decades later, when a newspaper interviewed her, Hattie spun yarns about the drive; the stories getting more colorful with each telling. In one story, a gang of cattle rustlers closes in. George and the other trail hands surround the wagon with Hattie and the children inside.
According to legend, Hattie loads and passes out rifles to the men as they fight off the bandits. In one version, Hattie scolded the men to quit being “nervous and white under the gills”!
The truth about what happened on that drive likely went buried along with Hattie when she passed in 1939.
But Hattie Cluck still stands – brave and tough as ever – her big stories and big personality forever memorialized in a statue at Chisholm Trail Crossing Park.