02/07/2022
I read Tom Bass, Black Horseman (his biography) many years ago & it made such a lasting impression on me. If you can find a copy, sn**ch it up. You won’t regret it.
There are so many important stories to tell, during Black History Month and throughout the year. Today, we celebrate Boone County Hall of Fame enshrinee Tom Bass.
Before Jackie Robinson ever donned a Dodger uniform—there was Tom Bass. Before Rosa Parks ever kept her seat on the bus—there was Tom Bass. Before Martin Luther King, Jr. ever had a dream—there was Tom Bass. Born a slave, the friend of presidents, the most famous Black American horseman this country has ever known, today Bass’ story is largely unknown.
“Yet, once his name was a household word synonymous with equestrian feats of unparalleled beauty and achievement. But he didn’t start out famous. He started out as a slave-child on a Boone County Plantation.” (Excerpts reprinted and edited with permission from Nancy Taylor Rojo’s blog “Noble Beasts”.)
Bass was born in 1859 on the huge Bass Plantation in southern Boone County near Ashland. His mother, Cornelia Gray, was a slave, and he was fathered by William Hayden Bass, the son of plantation owner, Eli Bass. At the tender age of nine Tom Bass had taught the family mule to canter backward. He was already developing a natural and phenomenal talent that would bring him fame and fortune as an adult. At some point, Bass left the Bass plantation for Mexico, Missouri, where he would eventually open his own horse-training stable. His reputation as a fair and honest man with phenomenal results brought rich and famous men from all over America to his training stable. Theodore Roosevelt journeyed to Mexico to ask Bass to provide him a well-trained mount for the New York saddle paths, and Queen Victoria invited him to London in 1897.
Despite the prejudice he often encountered at horse shows, Bass would earn tremendous personal and professional respect from statesmen and leaders all over the world—unheard of for an American Black man in that era. President William McKinley came to his home, as did William Jennings Bryan. On one of his visits to the Bass home, “Buffalo Bill” Cody brought along a young Oklahoma cowboy named Will Rogers. Bass would also gain international prominence and be forever known for inventing a bit that did not injure a horse’s mouth. The bit is still used today and is called a “Bass Bit”.
In 1890 Bass moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he opened the Tom Bass Stables on Main Street. In 1892, when the K.C. Fire Department needed a way to make money, Tom suggested a horse show. This horse show eventually became the American Royal—one of the biggest horse shows in the United States. After decades of unparalleled success and hundreds of blue ribbons, Bass died of a heart attack in his home on November 20, 1934.
Learn more about the Boone County Hall of Fame at https://boonehistory.org/hall-of-fame-2022.
