“Only a cowboy nation could have produced Will Rogers. And only Will Rogers could have done so much to lift the people of his place and time.”
That’s the lead-in to the third and last of a series profile of Will Rogers published in American Cowboy. The July-August issue of the magazine is now on newsstands worldwide.
A project specially chosen for the first full year of recognition of the National Day of the American Cowboy, set July 22, it was written by Joe Carter, retired Will Rogers Museum executive director and author of two books about Will Rogers.
The last in the series is about Rogers’ final years, those year he spent as a Hollywood film star, popular on the speakers’ circuit and dealing with the depths of the depression. He settled his family in California and spent his final years criss-crossing the country, even the world by airplane. His passion was promoting aviation and it was with Oklahoma aviator Wiley Post he went to his death Aug. 15, 1935 in an Alaskan plane crash.
The story is accompanied by photos of Will and Will Jr., quotes of his pride in his Cherokee ancestry and photos and information about the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore and the birthplace ranch at Oologah.