The romantic history of the state--its gracious women, tall men, Spanish warriors and grandees, American pioneers and land seekers, its Alamo, its victorious revolution, its statehood, Indians, rangers, ranchmen, cowboys, trail drivers--all appealed to Gutzon like a journey back to boyhood when he received the invitation of the Trail Drivers’ Association to their conference in 1925. These men, now grown old, wanted a memorial. They wanted to perpetuate the heroes of an epoch when cowboys braved heat and cold, drought and flood, hostile Indians and rustlers, as they drove herds of longhorns northward across hundreds of miles of continent to Kansas or Montana. It was disappointing to some of the newcomers to discover that San Antonio was a highly civilized city with a cultural history antedating the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. As for their equipment, Mrs. Borglum’s sidesaddle stood for years in a saddle-shop window as an eye-opening evidence of an effete custom. A studio was improvised in a shed previously used to house floats before the annual “Battle of Flowers” parade. There, while making the first model for the Trail Drivers’ monument, Gutzon was initiated into the lore of the trail. Old cowmen came in [Illustration: GUTZON BORGLUM AND SON LINCOLN] [Illustration: LINCOLN BORGLUM] numbers and sat at ease as they yarned about how cattle behaved; how cowboys talked, rode, ate and slept; how they dressed by putting their big hats on; how they soothed the bedded herd by singing a ballad of uncounted verses. When the time came for the sculptor to make scenes in bas-relief around the base of the monument talk rose to feverish heat over such moot questions as whether thirsty cattle lift their tails when they scent water, or whether cowboys squat on their heels around a campfire at night. Gutzon tracked down the few remaining longhorn cattle in the state and took time to witness driving, riding, roping--all the details of the cattle business as exposed in numerous rodeos. A cowboy known as “Red” posed for one of the chief figures in the group. And when a question arose as to who should be pictured in the other, there was rivalry over the claims of George Saunders, president of the association, and another old cowman, Tom Russell, recently deceased. Russell’s widow was a prime mover in the memorial project, but she wasn’t looking for a personal monument. She and her committee worked tirelessly to raise money for this tribute to the unsung heroism of their menfolk.