(PCM+)Tom Mix: “Straight Shooters Always Win”

Story by Jim Fulbright | Contributing Writer

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Thomas Hezekiah Mix was not a cowboy by birth, but in a dazzling rise to fame he became the most flamboyant and popular of all early movie cowboys. Mix was born Jan. 6, 1880, in the northeastern Pennsylvania hamlet of Mix Run. His father, a stable master for a lumber merchant, taught his son to love horses, a quality that paid dividends for the boy who one day would set the standard for cowboys of the silver screen. Not liking the name Hezekiah, Mix took his father’s name Edwin, and though he dreamed of becoming a circus performer, his parents discouraged it when they caught him practicing knife-throwing tricks using his sister as an assistant.

With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Mix aspired to soldiering and enlisted, but his army unit remained stateside guarding an artillery base in Delaware. He reenlisted in 1901, hoping to see combat action in the Boer War, but that all changed when he fell in love with Virginia schoolteacher Grace Allin, marrying her in July 1902. Mix then took leave from the Army, but never returned. He was listed as AWOL, yet not court-martialed or formally discharged.