Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America

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“In his heyday, Amon Carter had plenty of name recognition in Texas and across the nation. He was a friend of people like the cowboy columnist Rogers and not at all shy about picking up a telephone and cussing out the governor of Texas. Or wisecracking to the President of the United States. . . . Carter lives on as the personification of the mythical Texan, that larger than life character in a cowboy hat.” —Texana Book ReviewsFor much of the mid-twentieth-century, Amon G. Carter Sr. was the man who invented the cowboy—at least the larger-than-life Texas version that captured the imagination of the public, presidents, movie stars, and moguls. Carter donned his cowboy persona to build Fort Worth, from the Star-Telegram up, and much of the rest of West Texas. Jerry Flemmons brings to life the mythic huckster and newspaper giant who ushered the likes of Gary Cooper, Charles Lindbergh, Will Rogers, and Ike through the back door of his Fort Worth mansion and feted them at his Shady Oak Farm with rodeos and parties. The Amarillo Globe noted in 1936 that “West Texas is bound on the north by Colorado and Oklahoma, on the west by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the east by Amon Carter.” A lifelong journalist, Jerry Flemmons retired from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the late 1990s but continued to contribute occasional columns on his favorite subject: Texas. He authored many books, including O Dammit! A Lexicon and a Lecture from William Cowper Brann, the Iconoclast (Texas Tech 1998).