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Hidalgo and other stories

Frank T. Hopkins

Foreword by Professor David Dary
Edited by CuChullaine and Basha O’Reilly

ISBN: 1590481208
 

Cover image courtesy of the Library of Congress

 

 

It started as a search for heroes.

It became a hunt for the most elusive equestrian charlatan of all time.

If Frank Hopkins is to be believed, he led one of the most exciting, challenging and colorful (albeit unrecorded) lives in the late nineteenth century. No one rode more miles, eluded more danger, or befriended more famous people than he did.

During the 1930s and 40s the self-proclaimed legend told a naïve American public that he had won nearly five hundred endurance races, including an imaginary race across Arabia on a mythical mustang named “Hidalgo.”

Hopkins’ remarkable career supposedly began when he became a dispatch rider for the US government on his twelfth birthday in 1877. According to his mythology, this Renaissance Man of the Old West went on to work as a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, African explorer, endurance racer, trick rider, bounty hunter, Rough Rider, big game guide, secret agent, Pinkerton detective and star of the Wild West show.

Experts beg to differ.

This book contains an unprecedented study, undertaken by more than seventy experts in five countries, ranging from the Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum to the former Sultan of Yemen. These academics investigated the historical improbability of Hopkins’ claims and weighed him on his merit, not his myth.

The resulting exhaustive study revealed that Hopkins had maintained a spirited disregard for the truth, plagiarized material from famous authors, slandered genuine American heroes and perpetrated a massive fraud for nearly one hundred years.

Far from being the star of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show for 32 years, for example, the counterfeit cowboy was discovered working as a subway tunnel digger in Philadelphia and a horse-handler for Ringling Brothers Circus.

It is his endurance racing pretensions, however, that have brought Hopkins his greatest notoriety and made him the hero of a Hollywood movie. Yet there is not even a documented photograph of Frank Hopkins in the saddle!

Here then are all the known writings of Frank T. Hopkins, published in their entirety for the first time in history.

Go to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.co.uk

What the Experts say about Frank Hopkins 

“Hopkins should have been awarded the World's Greatest Liar award.”  Dr. Vine Deloria, Jr., leading Native American scholar, retired professor emeritus of history at the University of Colorado and author of many acclaimed books.

 

"The only endurance Hopkins ever did was with his pencil." James Davidson, Vermont Historical Society

 

I would judge the evidence as overwhelming that Frank T. Hopkins was a fraud."  Professor David Dary, emeritus professor and former head of the Gaylord College of Journalism at the University of Oklahoma.

 

“Did this man Hopkins say anything true?”  Dr. John Gable, Executive Director, Theodore Roosevelt Association.

 

"What Hopkins claims to have done on horseback is all very interesting, but where is the evidence?"  Jeremy James, Expert on equestrian travel, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Long Rider and author of “Saddletramp.”

 

“Hopkins is a phony!  He was obviously just repeating stories he had read. We don’t know of any contemporary sources that even mention him.” Leo Remiger, expert on the history of 19th century buffalo hunting and co-author of the "Encyclopedia of Buffalo Hunters & Skinners.”

 

“It is so obvious that Hopkins is a fraud – I cannot see how he could have fooled people for so many years.”  Gregory Michno, author of “Lakota Noon” and “The Encyclopedia of Indian Wars”

 

"I find Frank Hopkins suspiciously absent from any authentic historical events." Dr. Juti Winchester, Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum.

 

"I have determined Hopkins to be a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies.... Hopkins seems to have an underlying anger about his life and this would also be a contributing factor in his lies."   Dale Yeager, criminal psychologist and President of Seraph Security.

 

“Our heroes need to be real!” Susan Gibson, publisher of Trail Blazer magazine.

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