MCBHS 2025 | Rawhide Rotten Tough: Riding for the CBC Brand 

“There is a land where a man, to live, must be a man.” -Harold Bell Wright, When a Man’s A Man 

Ninety years ago in eastern Montana, riding for the Chappel Brothers Corporation was the mark of a man. These exceptional cowboys weren’t herding cattle, they wrangled horses.  

The men who rode for the CBC are legend in eastern Montana. They were tough, savvy horsemen, skilled cowboys, and are well deserving of their place in history. 

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Miles City rancher and writer John L. Moore’s father, John W. Moore, was one of only a few men to ride for the CBC for the full ten years of their operation. Wally Badgett’s father, Kirk, and his uncle Lee Badgett both rode for the CBC, as did Larry Jordan’s father, Larry Sr.  

Chappell Brothers Corporation, nicknamed “Corned Beef and Cabbage” or “Coffee, Biscuits, Colts” but best known as the CBC, was incorporated in Montana in 1929. P.M. Chappell and his brother owned a cannery in Rockford, Illinois, and Chappell started leasing and purchasing land in Montana to supply the business with horse meat. At one point, the CBC owned and leased 1.6 million acres in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. Their main range covered the vast area between the Missouri, Yellowstone and Musselshell Rivers.  

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The stories about the CBC have grown over the years, and Moore said that it can be hard to sift fact from fiction. Time has obscured details. Anyone with firsthand knowledge of the outfit has died, and records were lost in a fire.  

“When you look at an area as wide as eastern Montana, it can be really hard to verify anything,” Moore said. “Ranchers in that era with that kind of numbers were not going to tell the county assessor how many head of livestock they owned, especially when that number was in the thousands. Chappell told a hired man once that he had 63,000 horses on the books.” 

The CBC located their headquarters at Miles City, near the mouth of Sunday Creek on the Yellowstone River. Joe Conway, the previous owner of Miles City Saddlery, was bookkeeper and treasurer for the CBC and worked in their business office located in Miles City.  

“In the 1980s, Miles City Saddlery and the store next to it burned down,” Moore said. “If there were any records still there, they were burned or water damaged.”  

The CBC headquarters was only a couple of miles from the Moore place.  

“It was easier to swim the horses across the river there,” Moore said. “It was close to the railroad, and they also had some property on the other side. They had to have haying crews and guys fixing the corrals. All the cowboys did was ride; they weren’t asked to get on a mower or go cut poles on the river.” 

For roughly ten years, the CBC ran four roundup wagons in Montana, headquartered out of Oswego, Miles City, Fort Belknap and Sweeney Creek. They spent May through November on the range gathering horses, branding colts, castrating studs, and cutting out the “fats” to take to the railroad.  

“It was like a chuckwagon cow outfit, except it was for horses,” Wally Badgett said. “They were out there all summer working these horses.”  

Claire Boyce stated in his book, It’s Hard to Kill a Cowboy, that each wagon had 24 cowboys.

“They had wagons with cowboys and a cook to a wagon,” Larry Jordan said. “They went out and cut studs and branded colts. When they rounded them up, they used a creek bank as part of a corral with outriders holding the horses against the creek bank. They went out in spring and didn’t come back till fall.” 

Even during the depression, when men took any job they could get, working for the CBC gave a man a bit of prestige along with $40 a month, when a working cowboy on any other outfit would make $30. 

Most of the CBC hands were in their 20s.  

“You were supposed to be 21 to ride for them,” Moore said. “It was not like the cattle drives where they had 15- or 16-year-old kids riding. It was too dangerous. You had to be fast and wild, hard and tough. Only the very best cowboys rode for the CBC.” 

Besides his Montana holdings, Chappell leased reservation land in North Dakota, and for a time, ran a wagon on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. 

“I ended up with the branding irons and tally book from the South Dakota operation,” Moore said. “They only ran there for a short period of time because of drought in eastern Montana. They ran two wagons in Wyoming, but trying to nail that information down is pretty hard. I do this research out of my own curiosity and interest because my dad rode for the CBC.” 

Chappell Brothers Cannery 

P.M. Chappell invented the process of putting dog food in a can and started the famous Ken-L-Rations brand. 

“He owned a fox farm and mink farm, so he had a real need for meat,” John L. Moore said.  

“Chappell was a classic opportunist,” Moore said. “He started the CBC operation in Montana in 1928, but there is evidence he was probably in eastern Montana before that, buying horses on a smaller scale but not trying to own land or put out studs.”  

According to the December 5, 1924 Powder River County Examiner, “Christ L. Jesperson of Baker, a buyer for Chapel[l] Bros. of Rockford, Ill. …was on his way to interview several owners of range horses in this county with a view of contracting with them for the purchase of these horses… for which the price is $5 a head… Mr. Jesperson said he is ready now to take 5,000 head of these range horses…”

Moore found it difficult to authenticate information about the CBC operation and the cowboys who rode for them. 

“I once emceed and photographed a gathering of CBC old timers,” Moore said. “Only about half of them actually had ridden for Chappell Brothers. Like anything famous or infamous, people claiming to be part of it has always been the problem.” 

Phillip Rich, Chappell’s nephew, claimed that Chappell was passing through eastern Montana on the train and saw horses out the window everywhere he looked. 

“Who owns all these horses?” he is said to have asked a fellow passenger. 

“Nobody,” was the answer. 

The CBC owned about five “little” ranches, roughly about 100 sections total. 

“They wanted a headquarters, a place with corrals and water, and a way to claim some rights to all this free land,” Moore said.  

According to law, the CBC owned all unbranded horses grazing these tracts of land. Estimates vary widely, from 40,000-70,000 head owned or claimed by the CBC.  

As defined by the government, these were “scrub horses.”  

“They were every breed in the world,” Moore said. “The Quarter Horse breed wasn’t formed as an association until 1940. These were Thoroughbred, Morgan, French Coach, Cleveland Bay, Hambletonians, Percherons, Shires, Belgians, Indian Ponies. There was even a herd of around 100 head of Shetlands up on the Missouri River; they stayed intact and wouldn’t let a bigger stallion in.” 

Horses on Every Hill 

Miles City is often called the “Cow Capital of the World” but Wally Badgett said that has never been accurate. 

“Somehow that got tagged on us, but it’s not really true history. At one time it was the horse capital of the world. The Army Remount program was a big thing, and it was still going on when the CBC’s ran.” 

From roughly 1910-1920, Miles City, Montana was the largest horse market in the world. 

“Horses were going every direction from here,” Moore said. “Horses and mules were shipped out of here by carload.” 

Most of these animals were cavalry horses. At the time, Fort Keogh was the second largest remount station in America, supplying horses for the U.S. military. 

Generals would travel to Miles City to bid on horses, watching from a catwalk as cowboys, many of whom were famous bronc riders, rode them up and down an alley. 

“One report came back from a load shipped back east: not a single cavalry man back there could ride them,” Moore said. 

When World War I broke out the demand for horses grew even greater. 

“Eight million horses died in WWI,” Moore said. “It was tragic. The U.S. sold one million horses to France and Great Britain and we took another 180,000 with us when we entered the war. Out of all of those, only 200 head returned.” 

In the 1920s, as people started using tractors and automobiles and homesteaders started going broke, the horse market dropped. 

“A light artillery horse or good cavalry horse could bring over $100, even $175, then all of a sudden they were worth $5,” Moore said. “There were plenty of horses in the country to begin with, but people just started turning all their horses loose.” 

Between the remount herds, homesteaders’ abandoned horses, Indian horses and more, rangelands were overgrazed. Legislatures in western states passed laws demanding their removal. Montana was the first state to do so. 

“Old Jon Lockie said that no matter where you went there were horses on every hill,” Moore said.   

P.M. Chappell tried to make the most of the situation. 

“Americans were still eating horse meat; France and Belgium never quit eating it. Russia had a contract with the U.S. government to buy horse meat. Chappell had a good thing going for a while. As the states were trying to get rid of the horses, Chappell started bringing in bigger stallions, trying to breed them up,” Moore said. “I don’t know how it turned out financially for him.” 

Butte, Montana, had a horse packing plant. Much of that meat went to the Northwest, to Portland or Seattle. Miles City started to build a plant but it was never finished. 

Wild Wrecks and Wranglers 

Marvin Brookman, founder of the Brookman Rodeo bucking horse dynasty, rode for the CBC for their entire tenure. He told Badgett no one ever got killed riding for the CBC.  

“One guy got hurt really bad, he said. His horse fell with him and broke his leg. They found the horse but didn’t have any idea where he was and it took them a few days to find him.”  

It was midsummer, hot, and the cowboy had no water. When they found him, he had crawled up into an ant hill and had eaten all of the ants for moisture. 

Kirk Badgett only worked for the CBC for about a year, and Lee Badgett for maybe a couple of years. Kirk rode for the Sweeney Creek outfit. 

“It was one of those deals where very few guys worked for them from start to finish. You had to be rawhide rotten tough to withstand it,” Badgett said. “When my dad was alive and I had a chance to ask him to tell me those stories I didn’t. Now he’s gone and you can’t revive them. It’s a shame so much history has been lost on it; it was quite a deal when it happened.”  

When out on a gather in the middle of nowhere, if a man needed a new mount, he had plenty of fresh options to choose from.  

“When they got them held up to work them, if one guy was afoot, they’d rope one, work him and that was his horse when he got up,” Badgett said.  

The 30s were dirty times during the Great Depression. Homesteaders had starved out and pulled out, and the CBC had the run of the country.  

“They had stud bunches, and a lot of the studs had draft blood in them. There were all kinds mixed in. They were meat horses; they were looking at them like we’d look at fat cattle.” 

Lee Badgett told a story about a night when the herd they were trailing broke away and ran. 

“When he came in the next day, he had ridden 40 miles, but he had gotten a bunch and brought them back,” Badgett said. 

Larry Jordan Sr. was born in a dugout on O’Fallon Creek.  

“They were really tough, but they didn’t know any better; that was just the way of life,” said Larry Jordan, Jr. 

Larry Sr.’s father came west from Illinois, married a girl in Nebraska, and in 1911 came north to Montana with his bride. 

“They had a wagon and a team and were leading one other horse, and they had a big trunk in the back of that wagon,” Jordan said. “That’s how they got to Montana.” 

Larry Sr.’s parents managed to hang on when many settlers gave up and pulled out. 

“I think that’s where a lot of the horses came from,” Jordan said. “In the early dirty 30s, it never rained. It was dusty and terrible. A lot of people abandoned their stuff when they left, even left their horses.” 

Larry Sr. rode for the CBC, working with Claire Boyce on the Musselshell wagon.  

“I don’t think there have been any horse operations like this before or since,” Jordan said. 

One day, Larry Sr. and Claire ran a few wild horses into a round corral. 

“Claire and my dad went in there and he said, ‘Larry, rope me that bay.’ Dad roped him, tied him to a snubbing post, and they got a halter on him. Claire put his saddle on, bridled him, and said, ‘Catch me another one.’ So, dad roped another one and they got a halter and a long rope on him. 

“‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ Claire said. ‘I’ve got this one eared down and I’m going to step up on him. When I get on him, hand me the rope, and you open the gate.'” 

Larry Sr. handed him the rope and opened the gate. 

“I’ll see you in a couple hours,” were Claire’s parting words. 

“One was bucking and one was pulling,” Larry Sr. would later recall. “He came back about four hours later, and he was riding the one he’d put the halter on and leading the one he’d been riding. Somewhere out there on the Missouri River breaks, he’d got them tied up and switched.”  

Shirley Bridges was the wagon boss of the Oswego/Wolf Point division. Bridges owned a herd of 1,200 horses prior to working for the CBC.  

“He wasn’t just the wagon boss, he was the CBC’s overall administrator,” Moore said. “He was a really good cowboy, a good horseman and was well respected.” 

John W. Moore quit school at a young age and worked for Smokey Nichols, who ran horses and cattle. Following this job, he went to work for the CBC.  

The third wagon boss of the Miles City CBC outfit, Sid Vollin, became a type of authority figure to John W. Moore, and later bought part of a CBC-owned ranch that borders the Moore place. Vollin left his home in Wyoming when he was about 11 years old, riding one pony and leading another. 

“Sid Vollin had kind of a mean streak, and would try to get you to quit,” Moore said. “He was a tough old bird, and was still riding broncs at the Wolf Point Stampede in his 50s.”  

Vollin had connections with “Old Tom” McAlister, a seasoned cowboy who had come to eastern Montana on horseback as a teen, trailing horses and cattle all the way from Oregon to the Wolf Point area. 

“Tom McAlister rode for the CBC when he was in his 60s,” Moore said. “He was one of the very best cowboys to ride for them.” 

The men would be up around 3:30 a.m., eat breakfast and be horseback by a little after four. When they awoke, they would look over in the darkness, and there, leaning against the chuckwagon wheel, they could see Tom McAlister and the glow of his cigarette. 

“Tom would already be up, smoking a Bull Durham,” Moore said.  

For lunch, a couple of men might rope a range stud, head, heel and castrate him, and make a quick meal of the testicles cooked over a fire while they boiled coffee. A pot and coffee grounds were always carried behind the cantle on their saddles. 

“To my knowledge those cowboys never got a day off, and there was no drinking, no whiskey allowed,” Moore said.  

No firearms were allowed, either. The only exception was for the wagon boss, who carried a revolver in case foals had to be put down because they couldn’t travel, or to use as protection from studs. 

“Stud fights were horrendous,” Moore said. “Just in a day’s gather they might ride over 100 miles a day, throwing five or six mare bunches together. Sometimes they’d find a stud so chewed up they would have to put him down.” 

A Breed Apart 

The CBC was short lived thanks to changing times, another World War looming in Europe, and the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. 

“All of the open range stuff was over,” Moore said. “The Taylor Grazing Act really put the hammer down. They still had to run wagons for a couple years to get as many horses off the range as they could. Toward the end, guys like my dad were freelancers after the CBC moved out; they were paid five dollars per head to gather CBC branded horses. There were probably no wagons after 1936, but I can’t say for sure.” 

According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, “Public agency management of the federal grazing lands began with the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act on June 28, 1934, as dust from the worst storms in the nation’s history settled on Washington, D.C. Enacted after decades of rangeland deterioration, conflicts between cattle ranchers and migratory sheepherders, jurisdictional disputes, and states’ rights debates, the act and its amendments ended free access to the range. The purposes of the act were to stop injury to the public lands; provide for their orderly use, improvement, and development; and stabilize the livestock industry dependent on the public range.” 

“You could see the old CBC corrals from a high ridge on my place,” Moore said. “A neighbor owned it and I was there many times. They were definitely corrals for wild horses, built tall and stout.” 

The corrals are gone now, bulldozed and burned. Wally Badgett salvaged an old post and had it made into a hat rack. Only the memory of the CBC remains, an echo of thundering hoofbeats from the past.  

Around 1970, John W. Moore was asked by a visitor, “Johnny, would cowboys today have been able to ride for the CBC?” 

“My dad paused and thought about it for a while,” John L. recalled. “‘No, they aren’t hungry enough,’ he said.”