Cowboys

HOOPER -- Making custom-designed felt hats is a dying art. But a Hooper man is keeping it alive in a workshop in his backyard.

Kevin Mark says he is one of only two master cowboy hatters in Utah and one of only about 40 left in the United States. He has made hundreds of hats, hand-crafted in the way of the West.

He considers himself a cowboy at heart with the Utah heritage to prove it.

ASPERMONT, Texas -- When Boss Winter's childhood home was built in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt had just finished his second term as president and the Ford Model T was only two years old.

Texas was still horse country. Farmers plowed their fields with horses, and ranchers worked cattle on horseback. Boss was 5 and already riding a pony when his Pa, uncle and grandfather built the family home with field stones for the foundation and 1-by-12-inch planks to frame the three-room house. Boss can't remember a time when he wasn't on a horse.

Now at the age of 106, Boss doesn't have much left but memories.

April's wildfires that raced through this sparsely populated community 70 miles north of Abilene destroyed his childhood home, along with two others owned by his family for decades.

COWTOWN KEEYLOCKO, Ariz. -- Ed Keeylocko sauntered into the Blue Dog Saloon, took a seat and gestured toward the bartender.

"Let me have a little tequila, sugar."

Today it was just Keeylocko and the bartender. But often visitors walk into this bar, sit next to Keeylocko, 79, and whisper in his ear, asking where they can find Ed Keeylocko. They want to see the cowboy they've heard so much about.

"Some people think I'm mythical," he smirked, while his weathered fingers cupped the tiny glass of tequila -- neat, with no salt.

Keeylocko is the founder of Cowtown Keeylocko, an 80-acre spread with handmade buildings of wood and tin. Founded in December of 1974 and located about 40 miles southwest of Tucson, it lies at the end of a bumpy dirt road where a sign greets visitors: "Population 5 -- most of the time."