Edgar Beecher Bronson

Born 1856-09-20 Ithaca, NY (USA)

Died 1917-02-04
Manhattan, NY (USA)

Edgar Beecher Bronson was a Nebraska rancher and author. Nephew of famed abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Edgar Beecher came west in 1877 to start his own ranch in Sioux County, Nebraska. He was a protégé of famous geologist and businessman Clarence King. From his ranch, he ran cattle on the Niobrara and White rivers from 1877-1882. He witnessed events surrounding the last Lakota Sun Dance and the Cheyenne outbreak. He wrote his well known memoir of ranch life in 1908 from memory. More of a storyteller and adventurer than a historian, he has been reproached for inaccuracies in his memoir. His sometimes extensive use of cowboy dialect has also irritated some readers. Despite defects, his account is regarded as a "cow country classic" and, as one-time Director of the Nebraska State Historical Society W.D. Aeschbacher noted, it helped shape popular understanding of the Sioux and the Cheyenne.

See Anne DeCorey, “Edgar Beecher Bronson, Nebraska's 'Ranchman,'" Nebraska History, 81 (2000): 106-115.

Places Lived

Ithaca, NY
El Paso, TX
New York, NY
Wyoming
Sioux County, NE

Author Of

Nonfiction
Fiction

Keywords

Ranch life--Nebraska; Cattle trade--Nebraska; Fiction

Occupation

Journalist
Author
Rancher

Places Worked

New York Tribune

Bibliography

Reminiscences of a Ranchman. 1908.
In Closed Territory. 1910.
The Red Blooded. 1910.
The Vanguard. 1914.
The Love of Loot and Women. 1917.

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