'WORLD'S OLDEST ACTIVE COWBOY' TO MARK 94TH BIRTHDAY
Tom Wauhab Shuns His Rocking Chair Despite Great Age
By BILL STROBEL
SUNOL, Oct, 20. - When most pioneers pass the 75-year mark, society is content to let them retire to a rocking chair and spin tales of the "good old days."
Tom Wauhab of Sunol will spin a tale at the drop of a rawhide loop, but, at 93, he is far from being chained to an old rocking chair. In fact, when Tom reached his 75th birthday he was still breaking wild horses.
Today he still retains his title of the "world's oldest active cowboy," but he gave up bronco busting about eight years ago after a horse fell on him in the Livermore-Sunol hills.
Tom will observe his 94th birthday next month, and he still is very much "the active cowboy."
Several times a week he saddles his mare, "Nevada," and makes an all-day trip into the rugged hills surrounding his ranch.
As far as roping is concerned, he can still put some of the "younger fellas" to shame with a rawhide loop.
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| Tom Wauhab of Sunol (left) who at 93 still is plenty good in the saddle and with a rawhide loop, shows his son, Tom Jr., an old atlas of Alameda County as he recalls it in the days of his youth. He bought those spectacles in 1919. |
Wauhab is probably one of the oldest native sons in the county. He was born November 29, 1855, near Mission San Jose.
Tom was a friend of the Sunols, Bernals, Amadors and other California dons who inhabited the region before the land-grabbing "gringos" stepped into the picture.
"They were friends in the real sense of the word," he said. "No one passed near their ranchos without receiving the best they had to offer."
Among his memories are the California rodeos; the first train into the Livermore Valley; herding cattle through mud and mire to "Creek Route." where they were ferried to San Francisco's "Butcher Town."
He can tell you of the bad winters, the good winters and when the last grizzly bear bit the dust in the Sunol area.
"I remember because we were herding cattle through the Altamont Pass to the San Joaquin when we saw it - and what a sight it was.
"Of course, the 25 steers didn't like it; the horses were scared stiff and the cowpunchers cursed it for hours after they had rounded up the last stampeding steer."
Tom is the son of the late J. Webster Wauhab, who came to California in search of gold.
His father left England in 1849 and arrived in San Francisco aboard a sailing vessel after an eight-months trip around Cape Horn.
The first Wauhab got as far as Augustine Alviso's rancho near Alvarado and decided that the cattle business would probably prove more rewarding than a search for an elusive metal.
He settled near Mission San Jose and learned the cattle business from Alviso's vacqueros.
Tom's earliest memories are of his mother packing dried beef between layers of tallow in rawhide bags at the Alviso rancho.
WINTER'S SUPPLY
"The meat made up the winter diet for most of the vacqueros and Indians," he said.
He can also recall the winter of 1862 when 100,000 cattle hides were shipped from the Alviso rancho to Russia.
"The cattle died like flies that winter because of the absence of feed. At the Higuera Ranch in Warm Springs they made fences out of their bones to keep the starving animals from the vegetable gardens."
The old cowboy recalls the three-day trips to San Francisco, when the vacqueros herded their cattle around the Peninsula through Redwood City.
Smaller herds of steers were taken to Oakland, where they were placed aboard a ferry boat and transported to San Francisco over the "Creek Route."
Tom remembers a stopover at the "Halfway House," near San Leandro, where the cattle were allowed to rest, and the cowboys "hoisted a couple" before they continued their journey.
WIDE OPEN SPACES
"In those days, the cowboys had to contend with wide open spaces when they hustled stock and broke horses," he said.
The job of busting a bronco required only two men. One would rope the horses while the other blindfolded and saddled it.
When the saddle was cinched, the cowboy would climb aboard, pull off the blindfold and ride.
"The ride usually lasted about 15 or 20 miles through rough country, but when it was over the cowboy returned with a tame horse," he said.
Tom recalls seeing the first house under construction in Livermore.
"In those days it was called 'Laddsville.' A fellow by the name of Ladd decided to cash in on the trade between the bay and the mines, so he opened a combination saloon, hotel and general store near Robert Livermore's adobe."
Tom also remembers that he was one of the very few "gringos" attending school at Mission San Jose.
His first experience with the "three R's" was in a little school house located near the division of the Livermore and Niles highways, a short distance from the mission.
Wauhab's father helped to erect the structure in 1865. It was constructed of redwood logs taken from a huge grove outside of Hayward, he said.
[I can't find anything on the internet about this school. If you can help
me locate it, or an article about it, I'd appreciate it. - MF]
Later he attended classes in the mission and learned to speak Spanish "as well as the vacqueros."
The old cowboy recalls stories of Joaquin Murietta, Juan Soto and Sheriff Harry Morse, who tracked down the latter bandit and put a bullet through his forehead.
Wauhab remembers Morse as a soft-spoken, tall, slender man who wore a black derby hat.
California historians are of the belief that Joaquin Murietta must have used a jet plane and been triplets to cover as much ground as his legends indicate.
But Wauhab said his father knew the famous bandit and even worked with him in the 1850's on the Alviso rancho.
According to the legend, Joaquin arrived at Union City (now Alvarado) in 1852 from San Francisco.
The bandit worked at the rancho for two years before he headed for the mines and into the pages of history as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado."
Wauhab's father told him that Joaquin was "one of the finest fellas you'd ever hope to meet" during his stay in Southern Alameda County.
Later, when the bandit was reportedly "done in" by Captain Love's California Rangers near Tulare, the bandit's head was removed and sent to San Francisco.
Wauhab said he accompanied his father to Jordon's Museum in San Francisco, where the gruesome object was displayed, pickled in alcohol.
The old cowboy's father told him that "Captain Love must have killed some poor, unsuspecting Indian," because that head didn't belong to the Joaquin Murietta he knew.
Today, when Wauhab milks his cow, tends his stock and rides into the hills, he will admit that "he's getting a little old, but he is far from ready for a rocking chair.
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| Tom Wauhab, still young enough at 93 to make a rugged day's ride into the hills surrounding his Sunol ranch, inspects the shoe on his mare, "Nevada," before starting off.-Tribune photos. |
His son, Tom Jr., recalls an incident that happened a few months ago.
A cattle truck had broken down on the Vallecitos Road near the Wauhab ranch and one of the steers got loose.
"The truck driver came into the ranch and asked me if I would rope the animal."
Tom told him that he couldn't do it, but maybe his father would.
The driver looked at the elder Wauhab and laughed. "Are you kidding?" he asked Tom Jr. "I'll bet that old son-of-a-gun can't even get off the porch."
The elder Wauhab saddled his horse, loped out to the highway and caught the steer with his first throw.
"Come and get your steer, Junior," the elder Wauhab told the dumbfounded truck driver.
Tom Jr. says he'll bet that the driver is still shaking his head.
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