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Trail Boss

         This is a statue of a Trail Boss on his horse, located in Boot Hill Cemetery, Ogallala Nebraska.

         In the stirring days of the late 1800s, when the present city of Ogallala was an infant town on the Union Pacific Railroad, Boot Hill Cemetery was the final resting place for cowboys, drifters, and settlers. Numerous stories are told of those days when gun battles took their toll on human life. Many buried at Boot Hill ran afoul of the law and the streets of Ogallala echoed with gunfire as some slick gambler or horse thief met his end. One burial was that of “Rattlesnake Ed,” who was shot down over a nine dollar bet in a Monte game in the “Cowboy’s Rest Saloon.”

         Most of those buried here, were buried with their boots on, thus the name Boot Hill. The bodies, placed in canvas sacks, were lowered into shallow graves and marked with a wooden headboard. Boot Hill is unique –buried in its sod are the many stories of the early days of Ogallala.

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