Arthur Shoemaker Collection on Henry Grammer

Arthur Shoemaker is a native of Laredo, Texas. After attending school at Texas Technological College in Lubbock and serving in the U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II, he taught school in the Sapulpa, Oklahoma school system for several years. Later, he was employed by Texaco and worked in the oil business in Kansas and Oklahoma. As an avocation, Shoemaker pursued historical research and writing, focusing on western and Oklahoma subjects. Shoemaker has been published in a variety of publications including, The Chronicles of Oklahoma, True West, Oklahoma Today, Ketch Pen, and the Tulsa Tribune. He is a member of the Western Writers of America, the Rodeo Historical Society, and the Osage County Historical Society.

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Henry Grammer was born on July 20, 1883 in Falls County, Texas. He grew up in Texas, eventually becoming a cowboy on a ranch near Carrizo Springs, Texas. In 1901, he arrived in Osage County, Oklahoma Territory with a trainload of Texas cattle. Grammer stayed in Osage County, finding work as a cowboy for Sylvester Soldani, a rancher and influential member of the Osage Tribe.

In 1903, Grammer moved to Montana where he worked for the Circle Diamond Ranch under ranch foreman and Great Westerner inductee John Survant. While employed at the ranch, he shot and killed a man in a Malta, Montana saloon during an altercation. Henry Grammer spent his next three years in the Montana State Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana. Photocopied newspaper clippings and prison ledgers in the collection document this incident.

Grammer was released from prison in May 1907 and boarded the train for Ponca City, Oklahoma Territory. In July 1907, he married Maggie Alexander, a quarter-blood Osage Indian. Later that year, he began his rodeo career when he engaged in a match roping contest against Texas roper, Buck Matthews. During the next year his rodeo career really took off when he worked for the 101 Ranch Wild West Show in Ponca City along with his brother Tom and Tom Mix; he and brother Tom participated in the Ride and Roping Contest in Dewey, Oklahoma (later called the Dewey Roundup); and Henry toured South America with the IXL Wild West Show.

Henry Grammer’s rodeo career continued, and in 1912 he found himself in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a participant in the first Calgary Stampede. In the following years he toured England with the 101 Ranch Wild West Show, participated in the first East Coast rodeo to feature real cowboys in 1916, participated in Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1917, and won a match roping contest with Ben Johnson, Sr. at Fairfax, Oklahoma. He was also stabbed and nearly killed during an argument in Burbank, Oklahoma.

In December 1919, Henry Grammer shot and wounded Harry Church in the Leland Hotel in Ponca City, Oklahoma. He posted a $3000 bond, and after the trial was postponed a number of times, Grammer was acquitted in November 1920. During 1920, he was active as a rodeo judge, helped the Miller brothers with the 101 Ranch roundup, participated in roping contests, and traveled with his wife and youngest son, Buster, to Hot Springs, Arkansas. He also got involved in another shooting, this time shooting and killing Jim Berry in an argument over a steer; because Berry sought out Grammer on Grammer’s ranch at night and shot at Grammer first, the shooting was judged to be in self-defense.

In the early 1920s, in addition to his rodeo and ranching activities, Henry Grammer was also apparently involved in the moonshine whiskey business, servicing workmen during the Osage County oil boom. In early 1923, Grammer and another man confronted a bootlegger over an alleged hijacking; the bootlegger was shot and wounded by Grammer’s confederate. Three months later on June 14, shortly after a fight between Grammer and John Mayo and three other men, an automobile driven at high speeds by Mayo left the road near Shidler, Oklahoma killing Grammer, but throwing Mayo and his wife clear with minor injuries. Grammer had $10,500 in cash on his person at the time of his death. On June 17, Henry Grammer was laid to rest in the mausoleum at the IOOF Cemetery in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Best remembered for his rodeo career, Grammer is considered one of the greatest steer ropers of all time.