The 50s are often called the heyday of Western—we have an insane amount of movies coming out of Hollywood, immensely popular rodeos, iconic western wear and lots of merch produced on the back of all these, alongside notable actors being at their peak of popularity. But this Western craze didn't happen overnight—it was years in the making, and its origins stretch back much earlier in American history and culture.

The myth of the frontier

Though the frontier officially closed in 1890, the fascination with expansion—and all that came with it: freedom, adventure, and self-reliance—remained strongly popular and became a kind of myth. Its values resonated deeply with many Americans, who found themselves yearning for the open West in an increasingly industrialised and urbanised America.

And I totally get them—I was just walking my dog listening to the 'Shadow of the Cactus' by Lorne Greene, hoping the song would take me somewhere more adventurous, even for a short while. And now I'm writing about it, which was exactly what happened next.

Life imitates art

The romanticised West inspired a surge in Western literature, and Owen Wister, an Easterner and a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, was one of its era's pioneering (pun intended) daydreamers. Missing his travels out West in the late 1800s and "riding through the Big Horn Mountains and the Yellowstone" (his own words), he compiled a series of stories published in various magazines. Upon testing the waters (his stories were widely popular) and still dreaming about "vast bare hills", in 1902, Wister published The Virginian, a book often credited as the first true Western novel. The book has everything we now consider the essential elements of a Western genre: the rugged, silent cowboy as a national hero, the binary conflict (good vs evil), the moral tension between civilisations and wilderness, and the romanticised vision of frontier justice.

The Virginian was a commercial success, though some viewed its themes as overly romanticised. Nevertheless, it marked the beginning of a Western theme in literature, and quoting Wikipedia: (...)and later movies and television, establishing the Western genre and especially the cowboy ideal as an American icon.

Cowboy makes it on the silver screen

I don't know about you, but I genuinely love silent movies. The lack of sound (or some simple instrumental music) allows me to focus better on the plot, the subject and what they're wearing, and I love how those early pictures are so dramatic! But dramatic in a good way, keeping you on the edge of your seat rather than getting sick with the violent details.

One movie that left the audience gasping and screaming in 1903 was, in fact, the first Western movie ever made, The Great Train Robbery. It's a 12-minute long film loosely based on real-life events involving Butch Cassidy's gang, often called a masterpiece (it's free to watch on Wikipedia). The film's portrayal of outlaws resonated with audiences fascinated by the Wild West narrative prevalent in American culture at that time and set the foundation for the Western genre. And the reason why the audience went wild was because it ended with a bandit shooting directly at the audience - an unseen phenomenon.

But made in the New York and New Jersey studios, movies such as The Great Train Robbery couldn't really be considered Western, so by the late 1910s, when Hollywood officially became the epicentre of the U.S. film industry, the cameras, actors, and all the crew finally went West, which was just insanely practical because of the good weather and the nearby landscapes.

The 1910s-1920s, the rise of epic Westerns...

The 1910s and 1920s emerged as the OG decade of Western; they're Ancient Greece, and the 1950s are the classicism—maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I hope you get the idea.

With innovation in cinematography, new editing styles, cross-cutting and close-ups (keeping the audience engaged) and short stories replaced with longer forms (this one was particularly important as it allowed to develop more complex characters and plots), the 1910s and 1920s were a pivotal decade for Western movies. Quoting David Kiehn, a historian of the Niles Essanay Film Museum in Fremont, California: "This was also the time when movie stars became known by name."

Broncho Billy, William S. Hart, Harry Carrey Sr., and Tom Mix were the John Waynes of the silent-film era. Some of these early performers were true cowboys, like Mix, who insisted on doing his own stunts in his action-packed films and often got injured. By the 1920s, Hollywood studios like Universal, Warner Bros., and Paramount produced Westerns regularly, and one of the first movies to make a box office success was The Covered Wagon (1923), a film that had recouped its budget in just two New York theatres. Following its success, in 1924, Paramount produced The Iron Horse with a budget of approximately $280,000 (it quadrupled this amount in no time), ultimately showing that Westerns were what the people wanted to see.

...and the rodeos

These decades are also the years of rodeos getting really famous and iconic. Rodeos went from local exhibitions to grand events, drawing crowds from all over the country, like the Pendleton Round-Up, held until today, established on September 29th, 1910.

The golden era of Western everything

This is where things start to get fun if you're as obsessed with the Western genre as I am. The 1930s start really strong:

1931 - Cimarron, directed by Wesley Ruggles, gets 3 Oscars, and Rodeo Ben starts his tailoring business in Philadelphia.
1933 - Gene Autry makes his first film appearance.
1934 - Roy Rogers begins his career, and Nathan Turk sets up his studio in LA.
1935 - The New Frontier is released, starring John Wayne (yes, he's that old) and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (the most badass name) start popping on the radio.
1939 - Stagecoach, directed by John Ford, premiers (it's considered groundbreaking for several reasons; watch it if you haven't yet!), and Nudie Cohn begins his tailoring journey in California.

These are just examples of many notable events that took place, and as someone who regularly slaps Bob Willis and Gene Autry on the speakers, I am surely taking sides, but neither this music, movies or especially clothes have aged since their release/origin.

All these events laid a solid foundation for what we now consider the golden era of Westerns in the 1940s and 1950s. With the outbreak of WWII, things obviously slowed down (economic and personal reasons, many people involved in movies being sent to war, etc.), but only to blow out with extra power. By the late 1940s, with the war over, audiences were yearning for escapism and nostalgia, and Westerns provided a perfect outlet (just like back in the 1890s). The rise of television, colour films becoming the norm, and shows like Bonanza or Gunsmoke only cemented the dominance of the Western theme.

And here we are, 70s years later (or over 120 years later if you look at the whole picture)—we're spending thick $$ on original western wear that carries the bygone days, we're fascinated with the cowboy just like folks were back in the day, Paramount is still cashing their checks (those who subscribed just to watch Yellowstone, I hear you)—the Old West really is not a place in a certain time, but as Tom Mix put it, it's a state of mind.

The origin of the Western frenzy