Saddle tramp (person)

For other uses, see Saddle tramp (disambiguation).

A saddle tramp is a person who wanders from place to place on horseback. One of the most famous saddle tramps was Mesannie Wilkins; a 63-year-old farmer who made national headlines by traveling over 5,000 miles across the United States from Maine to California by horseback.

Etymology and history

The earliest known use of the term saddle tramp is from the 1920s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, evidence for the usage can be found in the 1922 Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette (Fort Wayne, Indiana). Sometimes mistaken for a nomadic cowboy, a saddle tramp does not move cattle; but instead looks for work, mainly odd jobs, while moving from place to place.

In modern times, a "saddle tramp" also refers to a biker. Corey Baum, aka Croy from the band Croy and the Boys, explains: [it] doesn’t matter if he’s on a horse or a Honda."

The Saddle Tramps, an all-male booster organization supports men's athletics at Texas Tech University, were formed by Tech student Arch Lamb in 1936. The name Saddle Tramp came from the stories of traveling men who would come to a farm for a brief time, fix up some things and move on.

There are other present day iterations of the term, including: "a person who cannot drive and has no shame in asking for a lift" (saddle bum), "a lone person who saunters into a bar looking for a drink" (drifter), and "attractive female who rides on the back of a sport bike wearing short shorts, exposing thighs and lower back (saddle tramp).

In popular culture

• Saddle Tramp (film) is a 1950 American Western film directed by Hugo Fregonese and starring Joel McCrea and Wanda Hendrix
• Saddle Tramp is a 1976 song by Charlie Daniels.

Saddle tramps in literature

• Grochot, Jack (2016). Saga of a Latter-Day SADDLE TRAMP: A Five-Year Odyssey. ISBN 9781537059150.
• Letts, Elizabeth (June 7, 2022). The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America. ISBN 978-0525619345.
• Allen, Rick (2016). Tales of a Saddle Tramp. ISBN 9781530131136.
• Preston, Arthur (1929). The Saddle Tramp - A Western Story. ISBN 9781022058460.
• Schweiger, Robert (2013). The Misadventures of an Old Saddle Tramp. ISBN 978-1481704892.
• Wilkins, Mesannie (1967). Sawyer, Mina Titus (collaborator). Last of the Saddle Tramps. Prentice Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Foreward by Art Linkletter.

See also

• Sea G. Ryder. November 9, 2013. Lily, The Lovely Bright Molly.
• Confessions of a Saddle Tramp. Shannon King. Boquillas del Carmen, Mexico. April 2023.