Earl Wesley Bascom (June 19, 1906 – August 28, 1995) was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, cowboy, rodeo performer, inventor, and Hollywood actor. Raised in Canada, he portrayed in works of fine art his own experiences of cowboying and rodeoing across the American and Canadian West. Bascom was awarded the Pioneer Award by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2016 and inducted into several halls of fame including the Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1984. Bascom was called the "Cowboy of Cowboy Artists," the "Dean of Rodeo Cowboy Sculpture" and the "Father of Modern Rodeo." He was a participant member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Childhood
Bascom was born on June 19, 1906, in a sod-roofed log cabin on the Bascom 101 Ranch in Vernal, Utah, United States, the son of rancher and lawman John W. Bascom and Rachel Lybbert. His father had been a Uintah County deputy sheriff and later a constable in the town of Naples in northeast Utah, who chased members of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch Gang and other outlaws including Harry "Mad Dog" Tracy.
Both of his grandfathers, Joel A. Bascom and C. F. B. Lybbert, were Mormon pioneers, frontier lawmen and ranchers. Joel Bascom was a member of the Nauvoo Legion (the Utah militia), serving in the Utah War of 1857 and the Utah Black Hawk War of 1865. He also served as Chief of Police in Provo, Utah, and as the first constable in Mona, Utah. Lybbert, who served in the Danish army before coming to America, was a blacksmith who served as constable of Levan, Utah and as Justice of the Peace in Naples, Utah.
Members of Earl's family include his grand uncle Ephraim Roberts who was a pony express rider, and grand uncle William Lance who was a soldier in the Mormon Battalion – Army of the West 1846–1848. Another Bascom relative was Wyoming rancher and Wyoming Governor Bryant Brooks who served from 1905 to 1911. Also the Army Lieutenant George Bascom who arrested Apache Chieftain Cochise in 1861 which started the Apache Wars. Three famous mountain men, Jedediah Smith, Doc Newell, and J. T. Warner, were related to Bascom.
Bascom's paternal ancestors were French Basque and Huguenot. Bascom's maternal family was of Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and German ancestry.
In 1912, when Earl Bascom was six years old, his mother Rachel died of breast cancer, leaving five children – Raymond, Melvin, Earl, Alice, and Weldon – ranging in age from 11 years to nine months. In 1913, Earl's father, who had cowboyed in Utah and Colorado and worked on ranches in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, went to Alberta, Canada, securing a job as a foreman on the Knight Ranch.
In 1914, the Bascom family loaded their belongings into a covered wagon, traveled a week to the nearest railroad in Price, Utah, and rode the train to Canada. After working for the Knight Ranches headquartered on the Milk River Ridge in Alberta and managing Ray Knight's Butte Ranch north of the town of Raymond, Alberta, John W. Bascom and his sons began ranching on their own using the Bar-B-3 brand. Over the following years, the Bascom family lived at Welling Station and ranched along Pot Hole Creek, ran cattle on the open range at New Dayton on the Fort Whoop-up Trail near Deadman Coulee, and Milk River Ridge, and ranched east of Lethbridge on the Old Man River and near Stirling east of Nine Mile Lake.
By Canadian law, all minor children who immigrated to Canada before 1915 and whose parent became a naturalized citizens, automatically became Canadian citizens. Earl Bascom's father became a naturalized Canadian citizen. Earl Bascom was an American Canadian. During the winter of 1916, the Bascom family moved back to Naples, Utah, returning to Canada in the spring of 1917.
Schooled mostly in one-room schools, Bascom quit school while in grade three to work on the Hyssop 5H Ranch, east of Lethbridge. It was not long before a Canadian Mountie, who was visiting the Hyssop Ranch, thought that one of the cowboys was just too young looking to be a seasoned cowpuncher and bronc peeler. The Mountie asked Earl Bascom just how old he was – he was 13 years old. Earl was returned to school. Attending school felt better after Earl's father, who had a school district transportation contract, gave him the job of driving an old stagecoach pulled by a team of Bascom horses each day to the surrounding ranches transporting fellow students to and from school.