For nearly 30 years, the guitar just hung on a wall. It dangled
there, body warped, its birch frame filled with stains, one of its
five strings snapped. And etched to its back twice was a name,
”
C.B. Irwin.
”
For nearly 30 years, the guitar just hung on a wall. It dangled there, body warped, its birch frame filled with stains, one of its five strings snapped. And etched to its back twice was a name, “C.B. Irwin.”
The former guitar of America’s “Giant Cowboy” of the late 1800s and early 1900s has called Hollister home for the past 30 years. That’s until later this month when its owner will donate it back to the Irwin family after nearly 80 years. The guitar’s owner found the family after taking the guitar to the Music Tree in Morgan Hill, whose repair technician researched its history and found the relatives.
The Irwin family plans to donate the guitar, along with other Giant Cowboy mementos, to the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum. That museum is in the process of creating a 1,200-square-foot Irwin wing that will display 300 items and 500 photos.
Irwin’s guitar “fills all the gaps in the collection” and will be the highlight of the wing, said great-grandson Keith Walters, who lives in Auburn.
“It all belongs in Cheyenne,” Walters said. “It doesn’t belong boxed up.”
The century-old guitar found its way to Hollister in the early 1980s when it was given to J.R. Guthrie – a musician who came from Wyoming – by his father.
Guthrie, a music enthusiast, hung up the guitar out of respect for Irwin, one of the most historical characters in the state.
Born in 1875 in Cheyenne, Irwin is a legend. Even the state’s license plate design is based off of Irwin’s horse, Steamboat. Irwin also is credited with creating the Wyoming Pioneer Days and the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, Walters said.
A member of the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Irwin had pictures taken with Will Rogers, President Theodore Roosevelt and Buffalo Bill.
Irwin established the Y-6 ranch, which still runs today, and died in a 1934 car accident when his tire blew out.
If you grew up in Wyoming, you know who Irwin was, Walters said.
“He is bigger than life there – he is huge,” Walters said. “And growing up, we all knew the stuff he did.”
All Guthrie knew about the guitar, though, was that it belonged to Irwin and he played “Life is Like a Mountain Railroad” on it during the 1903 hanging of convicted murderer Tom Horn.
“I didn’t know too much about the guitar,” said Susanne Guthrie, J.R.’s widow and the guitar’s donor.
Her husband always kept it on the wall and referred to it as Irwin’s guitar when guests asked about it. J.R. Guthrie always was conscious of its history before he died, his wife said.
Guthrie was a musician himself, creating the band “J.R. Guthrie and the Code of the West”, which toured through the Central Coast in the ’70s.
The second cousin of Woody Guthrie, J.R. Guthrie always cherished the guitar’s history but never played it, Susanne Guthrie said.
Last November, J.R. Guthrie died at 67 of mesothelioma, which he mostly likely got after working in his father’s business, which dealt with asbestos. With his passing, his wife knew she needed to find the guitar a new home.
“He didn’t just want to give it to anyone,” she said. “He would have wanted it to find a good home.”
She didn’t know where to start so her first thought was to look up a music store in a phone book, she said.
She found the address of Morgan Hill’s Music Tree and decided the shop would know what to do with it.
“I took it there to find out if it was really real,” she said. “I didn’t even know his name was on the back.”
And there, she got in contact with guitar repair technician Steve Wilson. He didn’t change the look of the guitar. He didn’t even change the strings.
“All I did was blow out the dust,” he said.
The repairman delved deep into research after hearing the story.
“After she told me about it, I was so interested,” said Wilson, of Morgan Hill. “Then I started doing some research.”
From there Wilson got into contact with the museum and curator Cathy Osterman – who was unavailable for comment before press time. Osterman gave Wilson the contact information for Walters.
“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Steve,” Susanne Guthrie said.
Wilson only did what he was asked to do, he said.
“She said she wanted to find a good home for it,” said Wilson, who estimated the guitar’s value at about $1,000. “After looking up the history, I thought it had to go back to Cheyenne.”
