Bud Waite - Profile of a Local Legend- Art Kidwell for hi-desert magazine
BUD WAITE: He Excelled as Cowboy and Tireless Tracker
Bud Waite, retired cowboy and San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff, remembers Yucca Valley long before it was a town-- when a few scattered homesteads dotted the landscape and cattle herds ranged freely from the top of the Yucca Grade east to 29 Palms and south into what is now Joshua Tree National Park. Those were times that few present residents or visitors have seen except in photographs.
Born on the Morongo Indian Reservation east of Banning in 1910, Bud came into a family which had already left its mark in California history. His great-grandfather Waite came down the Cajon Pass into San Bernardino in November 1849, then moved into Los Angeles. Here he would become editor of the Los Angeles Star newspaper, while his son, Sidney P. Waite, would return to San Bernardino and become one of the settlement's most active citizens. Like his father, he became a newspaperman, eventually becoming the owner and editor of the San Bernardino Guardian, one of the county's first newspapers. He then served two terms as county clerk, and was president of the board of education.
Bud's other great-grandfather, John Brown, also came to San Bernardino in 1849, and operated the toll road through the pass to the city. In earlier years in Texas he had been at the battle of San Jacinto when General Santa Ana was taken prisoner and Texas was about to secure its independence from Mexico. On the way to California he had been a hunting and trapping companion of Kit Carson.
Another relative was his great-uncle, Charley Colby, who, along with Bud's father, Joseph Waite, was on the posse that located the body of Willie Boy, the Paiute Indian of legend, who was the subject of what would later be known as the "last great man-hunt in the West."
Joseph Waite had taken an early interest in being a cowboy when he visited his uncle's Verde Ranch south of Victorville. He went along on a long cattle drive to Arizona, making the return trip by way of New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada. When he came back to Banning, he met and married Lulu St. Marie, a Serrano Indian whose family also had cattle. Growing up on the Reservation, Bud and his five brothers and sisters were exposed to the cattle business, and he knew early on that he wanted to be part of it.
"I learned a lot about cattle and horses from Harv Martin, my step-grandfather, when I was a kid," Bud relates. "He worked at the Whitewater Ranch and was always trading horses. Every time he got a colt that was a little bronco, he would come get me to go down there to take the rough off of him. For years and years, I rode with him."
Bud was seventeen when he came out to Warren's Well (now Yucca Valley)in 1927. He was working for the Talmadge brothers: Will, John, and Frank--who were then buying out C.O. Barker's cattle business. Two years later, Jim Dever, who had been one of the Talmadges' cowboys, acquired the well with his partner, Berry. Bud went to work for them watching over their cattle grazing at the Barker reservoir in what is now Joshua Tree National Park.
While he was working for Deaver and Berry, he helped his boss build the adobe house at Warren's Well. He remembers, "We got the dirt out there on the flat where that little, dry lake is and hauled it over there and made forms for it. They had a fellow come in and lay the walls. I helped him with mixing mortar and laying the floor. I guess we were at it two and a half weeks."
Part of being a cowboy included putting up and mending fences, knowing where all of the water sources were, keeping them open and clean even if it meant breaking winter ice over them. Where windmills provided water for cattle troughs, he also had to be a mechanic to ensure that they were working properly to provide needed water. There were over forty water sources in the local area and Bud, like other area cowboys, knew where they were and which ones had water. Sometimes he and two other cowboys were responsible for 500 or more head of cattle at one time. One of his duties was to ensure that the cattle stayed east of the summit of today's Yucca Grade and didn't head down toward Whitewater and the Low Desert.
Fellow cowboy, rancher, and later Under Sheriff of San Bernardino County, Kendall Stone, wrote about his long-time friend in a 1986 Big Bear newspaper article that Bud "had to take a back seat to no one when it came to gathering, branding, doctoring, driving, working and shipping cattle. But his forte, as everyone knew who worked with him, was handling wild cattle."
Bud's tremendous athletic prowess and skills were very evident when he entered rodeo competition at professional and local shows in Palm Springs, Big Bear, Running Springs, Victorville and Barstow. He entered events in saddle and bareback bronc and bull riding, calf roping, and team roping, winning some prize money and a number of trophies. One of his proudest wins was in 1934 when he added a sterling silver and gold belt buckle to his collection at the Victorville rodeo. Some years later he won a saddle there too, and continued in competition until 1957 when a hip injury forced him to quit.
He lived at Warren's Well from 1935 to 1939, then went to work for Hitchcock in Big Bear for two years. After cattleman Jim Stocker bought out Frank and John Talmadge's shares and went into partnership with their brother, Will, Bud Waite went to work for them. His expertise at tracking
cattle was well-known, and he was able to find strays which otherwise would have been lost. Kendall Stone also wrote that Bud was "probably the best tracker in the whole area...he and the tracks became one. He mesmerized himself onto those tracks and other cattle could cross them, or they could seem obliterated by a road or dust; those tracks he was on were for hime like a fingerprint. No two sets of fingerprints nor cow tracks are exactly like any other."
In 1947 when James W. Stocker was elected San Bernardino County Sheriff, he saw a need for Bud Waite's expert tracking skills. In April he appointed the 37 year old cowboy as Deputy Sheriff to serve "in the main office, but will be available to head posses in the occasional searches for missing persons and criminals across San Bernardino County's vast desert wastelands." Two years later he became a detective in the Homicide Division, and his reputation as the best tracker in San Bernardino County grew. Stories of the missing persons he located and the crime cases he solved with his tracking skills filled the San Bernardino newspaper until he retired. One newspaper account called him "California's best posseman."
One case he solved involved the brutal murder of an elderly woman during the 1956 Orange Show. Bud combed the murder scene east of the show grounds for clues and, noticing a footprint near the victim's body, deduced that it had been made by a heavy man who wore work shoes that were half soled and worn out. One shoe had a nick out of the heel. He followed these tracks from the crime scene back into the main part of the Orange Show Grounds. Bud said, "I went around all of the rides looking for this guy's tracks. I saw the track at the Ride To The Moon and went around behind the guy who was operating it. When I saw that nick out of his heel, I knew he was the one."
In another highly publicized case, two elderly prospectors had lost their way driving in the desert south of Barstow in search of a lost gold mine. When the pair did not return home, the Sheriff's Office was contacted and planes searched for six days without success. Then Bud and his posse were called out and in less than five hours they found one body. They then backtracked until they found the other man's tracks, which led to the second body.
. Today, at age 86, Bud Waite continues to enjoy a quiet life with his wife, Peggy, and his family. Like his family before him, he has left his mark on San Bernardino County history.
- Art Kidwell has lived in Twentynine Palms for 20 years. One of nine founding members of the 29 Palms Historical Society, serving as President in 1986, he is a historian of considerable talent. Kidwell is the author of a number of books about early life in the Morongo Basin, and particularly in his home town. His books may be found in local libraries and the most recent in local bookstores.
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