LIVING HISTORY
The Cow Creek Ranch unit makes its way down U.S. 1 during the Cattleman’s Day Parade as part of the annual Sandy Shoes Festival.
as if the cattlemen and cattlewomen were riding off their
ranches into downtown for the afternoon.
For many years the parade passed right by the Sloans’
home on Orange Avenue and 11th Street, with the Cow Creek
ranch unit tying up their horses behind the house to attend a
big parade after-party each year.
“The Sandy Shoes parade was the only time of year I wore
boots and a hat,’’ Kathy says. “I usually liked to ride in shorts
and barefoot.’’
In the early years, Jo Ann and Tommy’s mother, Honey
Sloan, would sew shirts for those riding in the unit before buying
the matching attire from the Farm Supply western store.
“We’d all have matching shirts riding in the parade,’’
says Debra.
Memories of the Cattlemen’s Parade are cemented in the
collective minds of the cowboys’ families: Bourbon pints
not-so-well-hidden in saddles; the year that a parade-watcher
who happened to be a horse trainer helped calm a colichy
horse that Junior Mills was riding; and best remembered of
all, the year Jack Crain’s Model T broke down and Will’um
towed it in the parade with his horse, Jack, typical of
Will’um’s cowboy ingenuity and a scene that made the next
day’s newspaper.
HE’S THE BOSS
While Jo Ann was the inheritor of the ranch, it was Tommy
who exercises chief control over it and the other assets,
including the Raulerson Building, which provided steady
commercial rental income.
Only a men’s clothing salesman when he met Jo Ann,
Tommy works his way into becoming part of the power elite
50
Debra and Kathy Sloan in outfits their grandmother Honey Sloan made for
>> them for the Cattleman’s Day Parade as part of the Sandy Shoes Festival.