Pecos Bill – No. 608

Pecos Bill is an American cowboy, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tales of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest. Probably invented by Tex O’Reilly in the early 1900s, Pecos Bill is considered an example of fakelore. Pecos Bill was a late addition to other “big man” characters like Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

I have vivid memories of the Pecos Bill (and Paul Bunyan) books that I read at my grandparents’ house as a child. My grandfather owned a large collection of educational hardcovers for primary grades from Garrard Publishing, and several of them were Pecos Bill titles from the late 1960s and 1970s. Garrard’s American Folktales series includes Pecos Bill and the Long Lasso (1968), Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado (1973), Pecos Bill Catches a Hidebehind (1977), Pecos Bill and the Wonderful Clothesline Snake (1978) and Pecos Bill Finds a Horse (1979).