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Photos courtesy of Bradshaw Gallery |
Bob Bradshaw: A Modern Cowboy Story
by Cyndy Hardy
“While my life seems perhaps to be measured
by events of interest rather than by an
introspective depth of experience, my
approach to the context of my life has been
a simple but powerful one … It is a life I
would live again and change nothing. And
that alone I think is quite an
accomplishment.” ~ Bob Bradshaw
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John Bradshaw talks about his father.
All video by Cyndy Hardy. |
SEDONA, AZ - September 4, 2008 – Few men today
capture the imagination of what it meant to
carve a life from the rough and moody desert
oasis town of Sedona in the second half of
the 20th century like Bob Bradshaw.
Fairly depicted in many old Hollywood
Western films and historic photographs, life
was hard here for the handful of pioneer
families who began settling the land just 20
years or so before Bob was born.
Though not as hot as Phoenix nor as cold as
Flagstaff, Sedona was extremely remote in
the day; men often left their wives for
weeks to care for the children and
homesteads while they traveled west to
Prescott or north to Flagstaff to find work
or to sell their peaches, apples and lumber.
Bob was born about as far away from Sedona
as a cowboy legend could be, on June 9, 1918
in Amoy, China where his father, John
Bradshaw, an accomplished athlete, had been
sent by the YMCA to teach physical
education.
Woodrow Wilson was president; World War I
had ended; the U.S. was the richest nation
in the world; and the Spanish Flu killed
675,000 Americans including many Sedona
residents.
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The Bradshaw family grew with two sisters
during its four-year stay in China and moved
home to Cleveland, Ohio in 1922.
“Until the age of four, I knew only one
language – Chinese. Still today, I have the
dubious distinction of being the only
cowpuncher in the world that can sing ‘Jesus
Loves Me’ in Chinese,” Bob wrote in his 2002
autobiography, The Sedona Man: The Life and
Adventures of Arizona Cowboy Bob Bradshaw.
Bob led a Huckleberry Finn life as a child –
exploring railroad tracks, woods and
streams; skimming the cream off bottled milk
that was delivered by horse-and-wagon; and
catching the 10-cent Westerns at the local
movie house.
The boy brushed close to great men of his
time; standing 100 feet from Charles
Lindberg as he landed the Spirit of St.
Louis, watching Babe Ruth pound the ball out
of the stadium, and seeing his father train
Olympic legend Jesse Owens on the local high
school track.
In 1936 Jesse Owens won four gold medals at
the Berlin Olympics; and 18-year-old Bob
bought his first 35mm camera that set him on
a path to his own greatness.
Bob set off to explore better climates,
picking crops in Florida for
10-cents-an-hour and driving new automobiles
from the factory to dealers in the
Southwest. Getting home to Ohio meant
hitching rides with motorists – or sneaking
rides with hobos on Union Pacific rail cars.
Bob developed severe allergies, which kept
him from becoming an Air Force pilot during
World War II. He worked in the forge
division of U.S. Aluminum, during which time
a friend who lived in Grand Rapids, Mich.
introduced him to his sister Bea Engler.
Bob and Bea married in 1940 and a year later
Bob Jr. was born. The new family moved to
Florida, where Bob learned the carpentry
trade. Soon after, Bob’s wanderlust and
allergies put them on the road west to
Arizona and California.
The family moved often as Bob followed the
construction market, pulling their 19-foot
trailer home behind an old 1935 Ford truck.
While building houses in Prescott, Bob and
the family spent weekends exploring random
roads in the Munds Mountains.
One day they happened upon Sedona.
“The gentle, mild rain and the seductive
landscape made us fall in love with Sedona.
We were sure we wanted to live in this
paradise that had captured our hearts,” Bob
wrote.
It was a few more years before the
Bradshaw’s pulled into town as new residents
in 1945. Bob had sold the trailer by then
and built a little cabin for the bed of
their truck.
“In that time period, campers didn’t exist.
If I had been a bit more entrepreneurial, I
would have gotten a patent on it and made my
fortune,” Bob wrote.
With money saved from a gig building the
Sedona Lodge, where King’s Ransom Inn now
stands, Bob bought a four-acre lot in the
Chapel area for $400 and built a farm house.
The house burned down in 1949; hit by
lighting.
Sedona was a hot spot for Hollywood movies;
and Bob’s abilities in carpentry,
horsemanship; and his knowledge of the area
helped the family earn a living for the next
50 years.
But the road to Sedona was little traveled
in those days. In 1949 Bob saw an
opportunity to capitalize on the fact that
no one in town sold or developed color film
for the few tourists who wandered through.
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Photos courtesy of Bradshaw Gallery |
He leased a small building from ‘Pop’ Miller
for $15 a month and negotiated a deal for
color film with Jack Frye, then president of
Trans World Airlines; and Ansco Color, a
film company.
For the first time, tourists took home
pictures of Sedona’s red rock splendor in
living color.
Bob also began selling promotional materials
to dude ranches and resorts; and postcards
of his own photography. The building that
Bob eventually built is known today as
Rollie’s Camera.
“This little store I started in 1949 is
making more money today on film than any
store in Arizona,” Bob wrote.
Out back of the photo shop, Bob built a
horse corral and started the first trail
ride business. His son, John, now operates
the horse and Jeep tour business as A Day in
the West.
Bob sold the film store in the early 1960s
and bought a 130-acre ranch for $200 per
acre in the Red Canyon area 12 miles west of
Sedona. Bradshaw Ranch became a staple for
filming movies and commercials.
An entrepreneurial visionary, Bob installed
phone lines before the ranch had
electricity; and fought unsuccessfully with
Arizona Public Service to underground the
power lines when they finally reached the
ranch.
Bea divorced Bob in about 1967. Bob married
Marie Jackson about a year later and would
have two more sons, John and Scott.
Even though he rubbed shoulders with the
likes of John Wayne, Glenn Ford and Elvis
Presley; Bob’s income was slight. “I
couldn’t even afford to pay the doctor when
the boys were born, so I traded a colt for
each son’s birth,” he wrote.
John, 38, recently said his father, being a
Depression-era child, learned to work hard
and not complain.
The family rarely took vacations, but then
most kids don’t have their very own Old West
movie set and get to work on 40-or-so
Hollywood movies; or lead a pack of tourists
down a horse trail at 10 years old.
Bob acquired enough cattle to earn
agricultural status, but over the years the
U.S. Forest Service cut his allotments and
by the mid 1990s his taxes had soared from
about $2,000 per month to about $20,000 per
month, John said. Eventually, the family
sold the ranch.
“The things I’m doing today, I learned from
watching him,” said John, now Sedona’s Vice
Mayor. Scott is an ace mechanic. Bob Jr.
owned a successful taxi company until his
death in 2004 at age 63.
The Bradshaw patriarch enjoyed good health
until the last few months of his 90th year.
A series of strokes quickly weakened his
body, and he developed pneumonia.
In the early hours of Aug. 8, 2008 Bob
struggled to breathe as Scott, 36, lay by
his side at Bob’s home in the Village of Oak
Creek, just south of Sedona.
“Dad, it’s your time. Relax; quit struggling
– you don’t have to do it anymore. You
kicked this world’s ass.”
And with that, Bob’s breathing eased and the
cowboy rode away.
For more about Bob Bradshaw and a
complete anthology of his books, photographs
and movies, please visit
www.bradshawgallery.com.
Copyright 2008. Cyndy Hardy. This article
may not be reproduced, reprinted or
redistributed without prior written
permission from the author. Contact the
author at
cyndyhardy@msn.com.
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