Patrick H Boles

The Trails of John Lovelace: Roaming His Burro Creek Country: the Story of an Arizona Cowboy and the Creek, Canyon, and Mesas That He Called Home Patrick H Boles

Publisher Marketing: The old ranch hand sitting at the campfire in Burro Creek's canyon talked of finding a fire ring with several running irons scattered around it. He remarked that he had heard that "old Johnny Loveless had been pretty handy with a running iron." That was the first I had heard of "Johnny Loveless." It was late October 1984 and it was my first trip to Burro Creek as part of my job working with ranchers to manage rangeland in that part of Arizona. Afterwards on the various ranches in that part of north-central Arizona, I would frequently hear other stories about this cowboy who had become a folk hero. I soon set out to find the man behind the stories and to sort out the stories that were true from those that had been told in jest during the man's lifetime but were now also being retold as true. John Lovelace was born in Texas in 1894 and as a boy jumped aboard a train to find adventure. By 1931 his trail had led him to Burro Creek Canyon and there he remained until a stroke in the late 1950s forced him to leave. During that time his neighbors on various sides of his Burro Creek Ranch came and went but John Lovelace stayed. It wasn't just a ranch to him, it was home. This book gathers the stories about John Lovelace, separates truth from fiction, and in the process discovers the real person behind them ... while getting to know his country.