The Road to 150

For half a century, the Texas Jack Association has worked to keep the memory of John B. "Texas Jack" Omohundro alive — through our biennial roundups, the pages of The Scout, and the family and friends who gather to honor America's first cowboy star. Today we open the next chapter of that work with a refreshed texasjack.org and an announcement about where the road ahead will take us.

We're calling it the Road to 150.

In 2030, two anniversaries meet in a single place. It will be 150 years since Texas Jack died in Leadville, Colorado, in 1880 — and 50 years since the Texas Jack Association was founded to keep his story from slipping out of memory. Everything between now and then is the Road to 150, and it starts with the site you're reading.

A New Home for Jack's Story

The new texasjack.org is designed to look the part. The nameplate, the type, and the foxed-paper palette borrow from the dime novels and theatrical broadsides of Jack's own era — the same medium that first carried his name across the country while he was alive to enjoy it.

What matters more than the look is what's underneath. The refreshed site is meant to be explored: a fresh telling of Texas Jack's story; an interactive map of Jack's stage career, from his Chicago debut through his final performances in Leadville; the Association's own history; the genealogical records that connect the living family to the frontiersman who shares their name; and a straightforward way to join us. Whether you're an Omohundro or Mohundro tracing your line, a researcher following Jack's tracks, or someone who has only just met Texas Jack, there is a place for you here.

2028: A Return to Deadwood

The road runs first through the Black Hills. In 2028, the Roundup returns to Deadwood, South Dakota.

For one remarkable season, in 1873–74, Texas Jack shared the stage with two of the most famous men the frontier ever produced: his partner Buffalo Bill Cody, and their friend James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok. The three of them together on the boards were a genuine sensation — three real scouts playing at the very lives they had lived.

Wild Bill was shot and killed in Deadwood on August 2, 1876, and the town has carried his story ever since. To gather there is to stand with the third member of that famous trio, and to honor the friendships that helped turn a handful of frontier scouts into American legends. Deadwood is also simply a wonderful place to hold a roundup — a Black Hills town that has never forgotten the West it came from.

2030: A Return to Leadville

And then, the destination. In 2030, the Roundup returns to Leadville, Colorado — the end of the Road to 150, and the reason for it.

It was in Leadville that Texas Jack's story came to its close in 1880. His funeral filled the streets: businesses shut their doors, miners came up out of the ground, and a fifty-piece band led the procession from the Tabor Opera House to Evergreen Cemetery. Nearly three decades later, Buffalo Bill returned to that grave with his entire Wild West company to memorialize his old pard and to pay for the stone marker that stands over Jack to this day. The Association has been there before, as well as individual members who have stood there and contemplated the legacy of the man.

In 2030, those quiet visits become something larger. On the 150th anniversary of Texas Jack's passing and the 50th anniversary of the Association that bears his name, we intend to make Leadville the largest gathering in the history of the Texas Jack Association — a roundup worthy of the man, the milestone, and the fifty years of work that carried us there.

Come Along

The Road to 150 is a two-year journey to Deadwood and a four-year journey to Leadville, and we'd like you to walk it with us. Explore the new site. Renew your membership, or join for the first time. Follow along as we share the stories, the research, and the plans that will carry us to the Black Hills in 2028 and to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 2030.

Texas Jack spent his life bringing people together to remember the West as it was. On the Road to 150, so will we.

See you in Deadwood. And then, in Leadville.