Book Description

On July 12, 1945 a golden Palomino was caught in the Red Desert of Wyoming by Frank "Wild Horse" Robbins. Later that same day a photographer out of Rawlins, Wyoming, named Verne Wood snapped a photo of that same horse. It would prove to be the photo of a lifetime and it's capture, like that of the horse, would change the lives of both Verne and Frank forever. When Verne saw the photo, he knew he had something special, so he entered it in the Denver Post's photo contest. It won the grand prize and soon the photo found its way to the Wyoming State Capital, the United States Senate chambers, the House of Commons in London, and the Canadian Parliament in Toronto. The likeness of the famous horse could be found in the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, the Double Shot Bar in Rock River, the Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow, the Desert Bar in Wamsutter, and the Saddle Grill Café in Rawlins whose Palomino Room was a homage to the horse. On top of that, nearly every postcard sales rack from Omaha, Nebraska to Reno, Nevada offered postcards with the horse's famous image. The horse would go on to be known as Desert Dust. Though the origin was never determined, both men would eventually claim to have given the horse its famous name. Recreations of Desert Dust's image were reproduced on leather purses, wallets, and belts by inmates of the Wyoming State Penitentiary and other craftsman. Desert Dust has been an inspiration for poems, prose, oil paintings, and songs. He has become the most famous horse in the state. But the story doesn't end there. Along the way Desert Dust was the subject of a Hollywood short (nominated for an Academy Award), an international travelogue, a court case with one of the strangest, cut-the-baby-in-half rulings ever issued by any judge anywhere, and a murder. Frank and Verne would eventually find themselves on opposite sides of many different controversies: the plight of wild horses; using an airplane to capture wild horses, and of course, the photo itself.