By Tracy Gupton

Nonagenarian cowboy Taylor Hall Jr. was the special guest of the Brazoria County Library in Angleton Tuesday evening. Better known as “The Bailey’s Prairie Kid,” Hall fielded questions about his long rodeo career, seeming to enjoy basking in his many fond memories.

Seated in the Angleton library next to his daughter at a small table containing a variety of black-and-white photos of him in action as a much younger man astride bucking bulls and saddle broncs, Hall autographed photos for members of the group of visitors who showed up to hear the living legend entertain with his responses to a variety of questions.

This writer was a teenager when first meeting Hall in the 1970s. He drove up to Gupton Feed and Ranch Supply in West Columbia in his beat-up old truck, pulling a small trailer containing his horse, and strode into the local feed store where I was working for my parents at the time.  Luckily, my older brother Cody was there that day to fill me in on exactly who this customer was.  I was impressed with the dress and walk of the highly decorated rodeo star who my brother quickly let me know was not just another regular horse feed buyer. Cody, who was participating in rodeos himself at the time in bull riding, saddle bronc and bareback competitions, quickly let me know that the Black man wearing spurs on the high-topped leather boots with the legs of his blue jeans stuffed into the tops of his fancy footwear was a very special cowboy.

So, I sat in front of Taylor Hall Jr. Tuesday at the Angleton library feeling special to be in The Kid’s presence. He celebrated his 92^_nd birthday February 15, 2024, and still boasts the same spark in his eyes of age, peering out at his audience through the lenses of glasses that he did not need during his rodeo participation years.

Among the many questions The Kid answered Tuesday were how old he was when he participated in his first rodeo (nine or ten he said), is he still riding horses at 92 (yes), where was the first rodeo he participated in (the Clute-Lake Jackson area where the Target store is located now, although back then it was mostly just an open field), and what was the meanest, baddest bull he ever rode (he couldn’t recall the bull’s name but admitted they were all bad bulls).

Hall’s 54-year rodeo career … you read that right, 54 years … resulted in “The Bailey’s Prairie Kid” being inducted into four different rodeo halls of fame. Hall entered the Texas Cowboy Rodeo Hall of Fame in Belton, Texas, in 1994, the National Multicultural Western Hall of Fame in Fort Worth in 2019, the Bull Riders Hall of Fame in 2020 and most recently the Oklahoma Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City February 10^_th of this year.

His introduction to participation in the Brazoria County Fair in Angleton goes all the way back to 1958 when The Kid was 26 years old. He rode bulls and horses and participated in steer dogging competitions in rodeos from McBeth in Brazoria County to Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Hall said most rodeo cowboys had fancy rigging bags but throughout his long rodeo career he always carried everything he needed at rodeos in a burlap bag that The Kid called a “croaker sack.”  He recalled riding bulls and horses in Madison Square Garden during the day many years ago, then getting on an airplane and flying back to Texas to ride in the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo later that same night.  Hall told his library audience that he got funny looks from people at the New York City airport when this Black cowboy stood amongst them, waiting for his “croaker sack” to roll out with everyone else’s fancy luggage.

Taylor Hall Jr. recalled first attending rodeos in a horse-drawn wagon with his father when he was a little boy residing in Bailey’s Prairie between East Columbia and Angleton. He said he grew up a cowboy, has lived his long life as a cowboy, and intends to die a cowboy. But he is in no big hurry to have the last part of that statement occur.  The Kid is still very much alive!

In association with Black History Month, the Brazoria County Library hosted “The Bailey’s Prairie Kid” Tuesday night. In the 1950s Hall helped establish the Okmulgee Roping and Riding Club in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, provided leadership to several Black cowboy rodeo associations prior to racial integration, and served as president of the Southwestern Black Cowboy Association in the 1960s.

In 1991, Hall was honored alongside his colleagues at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo by The Black Go Texan Committee as a “Cowboy Living Legend.”

It was an honor to sit with this living legend Tuesday in Angleton and listen to Taylor Hall Jr. share his personal memories of his glory years in rodeo arenas with those in attendance.