Green, Ben K.

Ben King "Doc" Green, (1912-1974), horse trader and rustic raconteur, was born in Hopkins County, Texas, near Cumby where his parents, David Hugh and Bird King Green, had lived several generations. At twelve years of age, Ben left home "ahorseback" and sought out wagon yards, mule barns and livery stables, a more useful education in his mind. Within a few years, Green and his family moved to Weatherford, Texas, where he attended high school, but his days as a "wild, young cowboy" buying, selling and trading stock fueled his imagination more than formal learning.

In 1960, Green contributed several of his horse trading stories to the Tally Book, publication for the Fort Worth International Quarter Horse Jockey Club, and he determined that writing about his experiences would be his goal. Green "talked his books," as he said, telling his stories into a tape recorder and to his secretary who edited his work. "Doc," the cowboy and horse trader, wrote exactly liked he talked, a dialect writing, and his spell-binding tales which had fascinated acquaintances and strangers alike launched the writer, Ben K. Green.

While attending a meeting of the Western History Association held in El Paso, Texas, Green met a New York editor who had seen his recent story, Gray Mules, published in the Southwest Review (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, Summer, 1965). From that association came Horse Tradin' (1967) the first of four books by Ben K. Green published by Alfred A. Knopf. The twenty-fifth printing in 1990 of Horse Tradin' by Knopf hailed this edition of Green's stories as a classic of Western Americana.

As the popularity of his stories spread nationwide, Ben thoroughly enjoyed his fan mail and the lecture circuit. Old yarn-spinner Ben K. Green, a colorful man in character and language, published eleven books from 1963 to 1974. His contemporary, writer A. C. Greene, praised Ben's stories, saying, "I think he represented the last real voice of old-time Texas in literature." ( Dallas Morning News, 10/7/74.)

Sources:

From the guide to the Ben K. Green Papers AR326., 1900-1976, 1937-1974, (Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library)