In January 1986, California photographer James B. Wood was hired by MJB Coffee to shoot a commercial for their product. Location scouts from Los Angeles came to Durango and met with local rancher Duane Cugnini and local photographer Tony Schweikle to arranged the details for film production.
They called Charlie and Lorraine Taylor, who live in the old ghost town of Mayday in La Plata Canyon just west of Durango. The Taylors were known for their collection of vintage wagons, sleighs, mules and draft horses. If “Hollywood came to call” in Durango, they were always the ones who provided props and wagons.
Two locations were chosen, one near Baker’s Bridge and the other near La Plata Canyon. The Taylors brought their chuck wagon with a “fly,” a tent and a vintage ore wagon along with a draft horse team. Duane invited some of the local cowboys to participate in the filming and he provided horses and cattle. The Hollywood set director insisted that everything on the location was true to 1886 detail, including saddles, bedrolls, coffee cups and gear. The costumer put the cowboys into vintage clothing and pasted mustaches on several of them. Snow began to fall on a cold January day.
The scene was set and photographer James B. Wood went to work, capturing an iconic image of cowboys resting around a fire in camp, drinking hot coffee in a soft and snowy scene.
This is how James described his creative process to capture the image:
“I don’t do reality well. I have to romanticize things. I dream up images and I shoot them – fantasies and escapism. If I can’t feel the image, it won’t work. The most fun I had was shooting a commercial of an 1890s cattle drive in the snow in Colorado. We were creating reality and living it. Lots of people were having fun on that shoot – the cowboys, the agency people and my crew. The applied arts are all about getting paid for what you love to do anyway. Not many people have that opportunity.”
James gave several prints and slides of his photos to the Taylors and a couple of the cowboys. Four years later, in 1989, when local hat maker Kevin O’Farrell was working on plans to create a Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Durango, local artist Tom McMurray brought Ron Klatt’s copy of the photo to an organizational meeting of the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering and our first limited-edition print was born. The First Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held October 13-15, 1989 in the Strater Hotel.
The Board of Directors of the Gathering have recreated the 1989 print in tribute to 25 years of cowboy poetry, history and culture in Durango and the West. You can purchase a limited edition anniversary print, numbered and signed by the photographer, in the Sales Room during the Gathering or online at www. durangocowboypoetrygathering.org.
James Wood lives in California and signed all of the 25th anniversary prints. Duane Cugnini runs Hi-Country Cattle Auction in Breen. Tony Schweikle lives in Italy and is involved in film production. Lorraine Taylor still lives in MayDay and occasionally works as camp cook for RimRock Outfitters in Mancos. Charlie Taylor died in 2009 and Tom McMurray died in July.
