By Mona Lange McCroskey

In 1967, drawn by the immense, open country of Australia, Prescott cowboy Lyman Tenney entered into a contract to manage the Wollogorang station, in the Northern Territory on the Gulf of Carpenteria. Although the Tenney family had always lived on Arizona ranches, the distances in Australia were daunting and they were isolated for four months every year by monsoon rains. It was 500 miles to the grocery store at Mount Isa! A few groceries were available at Burketown, 187 miles down the coast (population 76-"and 70 of those were Aboriginals,") by two tracks down through the timber. The Tenneys soon connected with the mail plane that came in every two weeks.

Lyman was impressed with the up-to-date "flying doctor service" in Australia. The service routinely furnished two-way radios, providing connections with about anyplace they needed, even to calling in grocery orders for air delivery. Dr. Tim O'Leary was available for medical emergencies. Tenney remembers the doctor performing an operation on an Aboriginal infant by flashlight on the kitchen table under an old tin roof, with the monsoons threatening. Each station had a medical kit with numbered drawers and compartments. Every morning at eight o'clock there was a "medical hour" on the radio, and the doctor would direct treatment. When a young Aboriginal boy crushed his thumb in a motor-driven cement mixer, Lyman called Dr. Tim and was asked, "Why don't you find something more dangerous for the children to play with, like hand grenades?" Quick on the comeback, Tenney replied, "Yes, read you, Doctor, loud and clear. In what drawer and what number do I find the hand grenades?" The radio served as a party line and their conversations were listened in on as far away as Western Australia! The children on the station attended "school of the air." They learned, and they became acquainted with the other children in their classes although they never met personally. 

Working cattle in Australia took Lyman back to the time when there were no fences. The cattle were wild and few were branded. The Aussies would just gather bullocks, as many as they could, and take them in to sale. Tenney allowed as how working with Aboriginals was "kind of like tryin' to round up a bunch of quail with heel flies for cowboys." But he managed to brand about 2,500 head in the three years he was at Woologorang. 

Lyman then moved on to the Ban Ban Springs station up around Darwin. He was hired by Nelson Bunker-Hunt, of Dallas, Texas, to do a "feasibility study" on domesticating water buffalo for the purpose of exporting meat to the United States. Historically, water buffalo were domesticated animals from India used as beasts of burden and to plow fields. And when miners went to Australia to work in the gold fields they brought Chinese laborers, who in turn brought the water buffalo. When the gold fields played out the abandoned buffalo became wild and multiplied into the thousands. Roping water buffalo was a real challenge for the Arizona cowboy. He describes his efforts as probably the first one to attempt to rope them. 
"Get one of those old water buffalo on their horns, scoot way down towards the ground, and you've got to catch 'em by one horn and half a head. You can't rope their horns, and that gives them an advantage. And they weigh anywheres from 1,200 to 1,400 pounds. And ridin' a horse, which the horses weren't real big anyway, so it'd get kind of interesting." 

One time Tenney roped an old cow buffalo that went to the right and his horse went to the left, each on one side of a big gum tree. He had it [his rope] tied hard and fast and "we all came together in a pile on the other side." He tried gathering the buffalo, who ran in family groups, into bunches or "coachers" that the cowboys could drive and handle. That worked for a little ways and then the old lead cow would leave, with the rest of the group following. 

"So our best way of domesticating 'em, or catchin' em, was ropin' 'em from a vehicle. It wasn't a matter of herding 'em together or getting' 'em together in a bunch. And as far as it bein' dangerous, if one of them started directly someplace, they go straight through, and if you was in their way, you would really, really get it. We'd take one vehicle and just drive around and around 'em and get 'em out in open space. And then the other vehicle would take to one particular one, and just run and rope 'em, and had it tied to the four-wheel drive vehicle with the windshield down. And I'd stand up on the passenger side, which was on the left-hand side down there. And Alaire [his wife] would hold me. She was holdin' that monkey bar, and she'd hold me around the waist, and we had it tied to the vehicle. And I'd rope 'em." 

Lyman's eyes still light up when he relates his water buffalo escapades. "And we did that for eight months. Had a lot of fun at that!" 

After four years in the Territory the Tenneys went down into what they called "civilization," near Brisbane. They spent the next ten years teaching horsemanship and roping, and helping organize horse clubs. They traveled all over Australia, including Tasmania, putting on clinics and meeting thousands of people. They imported thirty-eight head of horses from the United States: quarter horses, Appaloosas, and paints. The animals had to spend six months' quarantine in England before they were imported into Australia. Lyman and Alaire organized the Paint Horse Association of Australia. It became a very popular breed, and there are lots of them there now. They had two paint stallions and an Appaloosa stallion from Chandler, and one year in Australia their quarter horse, their Appaloosa, and their paint horse were the National Champion Working Horses. "So we're pretty proud of that." Lyman, an old rodeo hand, conducted some bull riding schools, too. He says the Aussies are tremendous bronc riders, and time has proven them to be very good bull riders, too. At the time he was there, there were no Brahman bulls. They were riding bullocks. 

Today Lyman Tenney enjoys his retirement at the Arizona Pioneers' Home. But his "very satisfying experiences" and "great times" in Australia provide him with happy memories and fodder for wonderful stories. You can read the entire story of Lyman's life in the oral history collection at Sharlot Hall Museum. 

(Mona Lange McCroskey is a research historian affiliated with Sharlot Hall Museum who has conducted more than three hundred oral histories in Prescott and Yavapai County.) 

Our readers' thoughts... 

I read your article with great interest. Lyman and Alaire Tenney introduced me to Western stlye riding when i was 15 years old in on a property they leased in a place called Gidgegannup Western Austrlia. I left school to work for these people for a few years. They then packed up and lived with our family for a period of 6 months. They had their Appaloosa stallion Auctioneers Shadow and paint horses Joleo and Bayleo with them.
thanks for the infor it is great
Cheers

sharon H
August 10, 2007



Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (pb130f14i13). Reuse only by permission.
Twenty years after Lyman Tenney was riding this bronc, he picked up and moved to Australia. In the remote regions of the country Tenney continued being an Arizona cowboy and even had some opportunities to try and round up a herd of water buffalo using an automobile.