Who Was that Masked Man Anyway?
On this day in 1933 the first episode of The Lone Ranger debuted on Detroit radio station WXYZ. The show opened with Rossini’s William Tell Overture and the shout “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” The masked ex-Texas Ranger and his faithful Native American companion Tonto (whose inauthentic dialog included lines like “You betchum”)  fought of justice in the American Old West. The show’s audience grew to over 20 million Americans by 1939.

This pictorial quilt titled “Wild, Wild West” was made by Willoa Stockton Shults of Boerne, Texas in 1985. Mrs. Shults notes this about her design: “The main figure represents the mainstay of Texas symbolism–the cowboy and his faithful companion–the horse. His nemesis–the Indian–is inferred from the arrows. The background represents the terrain of West Texas with the Guadalupe Mountains in the distance.” Shults’ quilt was documented during the Texas Quilt Search and included in the 1990 book Lone Stars: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, Vol. II, 1936-1986 by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes.

View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view.

Sources:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-lone-ranger-debuts-on-detroit-radio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger

Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org