First Encounters: Pronghorn "Antelope"

About 125 miles west of Westport KS, my grandsires' jumping off place, I braked my steed to take a photo of this street sign:

Like so many street names, does this one have a secret bit of history tucked inside?  Well, I like to think so.  Because perhaps it was here, in the tall grass prairie outside Wamego Kansas, that my ancestors first encountered a fleet, sloe-eyed and utterly charming creature, a North American endemic, the pronghorn.

Audubon's illustration of the North American pronghorn

Most people today know pronghorns as antelope -- think of "home, home on the Range, where the deer and the antelope play."  But, it is not an antelope nor a gazelle.  It is the sole survivor of ancient species of hoofed mammals dating back 20 million years ago, one of our few living links to the Ice Age.  

Pronghorns are the second fastest animal in the world, the result of successfully fleeing from the now extinct North American cheetah and Dire wolf.  In fact, pronghorn can easily reach 70 mph and, unlike the African cheetah, they can sustain 60 mph for over a quarter mile and 30 mph for up to five miles before slowing.  

"They came to us like the wind, till within 60 or 80 rods, stop and examine us for a few minutes, then away they would go and come up upon the other side of us....in full lope, like prairie hens on the wing."  W. McBride, 1849 

Pronghorn could easily outrun a horse and rider with sufficient distance to avoid being shot by even the most powerful guns of the day.  This lead to many foolish chases and disappointed hunters....until the emigrants discovered the pronghorn's fatal flaw...

"Antelope are very shy as well as fleet...you cannot slip up on an antelope, but you can excite their curiosity and entice them up to you and shoot them.  One would think they were all females on account of their curiosity...All that is necessary is to hide behind a sage bush, draw your ramrod from your rifle and fasten a red handkerchief or shirt on the end of it and move the red object back and forth.  As soon as it is seen by the antelope, he will circle round it, gradually approaching nearer and nearer until within good shooting range."  William Swain, 1849

Diarist Dr. Townsend bemoaned the "murder" of a pronghorn and diarist Marie Nash secretly exulted when the hunters in her wagon company returned empty handed.  Nevertheless, of the 35 million pronghorn thought to be grazing the prairies and high deserts of the American West there are only about 700,000 left today.  If you are fortunate, you can see them  in the high desert areas of California, Oregon, Idaho and Montana as well as Nevada and Utah.

From "The Prairie Traveler" by Randolph  Marcy