Cowboy’s Lament

In 1860, 16-year-old Frank Maynard left Iowa to trail a herd of cattle from Missouri to Colorado, thus beginning his adventures as an open-range cowboy. Overhearing a version of an old Irish ballad in 1876, he reworked it as "The Cowboy's Lament," recognized today as "The Streets of Laredo." His personal account offers a rare and revealing glimpse of the true Old West.