Full Name Frank Hopkins Nationality American | Name Frank Hopkins | |
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Died 1951, Middle Village, New York City, New York, United States Similar People Viggo Mortensen, Zuleikha Robinson, Joe Johnston, James Newton Howard | ||
Arootsakoostik 2008 frank hopkins
Frank T. Hopkins (born 1865 – died 1951) claimed he was an American professional horseman who at one time performed with the Ringling Brothers Circus. He was supposedly a legendary distance rider, claimed to have won 400 races, and was recognized by his contemporaries as supporting the preservation of the mustang. None of his claims can be proven and his birth is recorded in Pennsylvania as 1893.
Contents
- Arootsakoostik 2008 frank hopkins
- Meet author frank hopkins
- Early life and education
- Career
- Death
- In popular culture
- References
Though the Disney film Hidalgo was based on Hopkins' purported story, his alleged exploits are most likely fictional. He has been described as a "fabulator and a confidence man whose tales of heroic deeds were little more than tall stories." Few items in his accounts have been verified by outside, reliable, third-party sources.
Meet author frank hopkins
Early life and education
Hopkins said he was born to a Lakota mother and European-American father, that he grew up in both cultures, and that he learned to ride and care for horses at an early age. He claimed that his father, Charles Hopkins, was a scout for George Armstrong Custer and he was captured by Chief Gall in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but he was released four months later and returned to Fort Laramie, which is where Frank said he was born and raised (his father being with Custer cannot be substantiated). The Fort Laramie National Historic site has no record of his birth or family. There is a marriage certificate that Frank Hopkins signed in New York in 1929 where he put his age at 44 which, if true, would place his birth in 1885.
Career
Hopkins claimed to have been a cowboy and professional horseman in the American West, where he gained a reputation for distance riding. In his autobiographical memoir (unpublished in his lifetime) and accounts to friends, he claimed to have been featured as one of the "Rough Riders of the World" in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which toured in Europe as well as the United States.
A number of his stories have been debunked by many historians. Examples include:
In 1926 Hopkins was foreman of a construction crew, digging a subway tunnel in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In the 1940s, Hopkins claimed he was honorary chair at a Vermont Races, though the Vermont Historical Society has no knowledge of any races in Vermont. Hopkins also claimed to have won a Texas-to-Vermont endurance race at age 21, riding an 800-pound buckskin, but there is no evidence in contemporary sources that such a race was ever held. Up to the time of his death in 1951, he remained an outspoken champion of the threatened mustang which he called "the most significant animal on the North American continent."
Death
Frank Hopkins is interred in Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens County, New York City.
In popular culture
Hopkins' life and the story of the race in Arabia were the inspiration for the 2004 film Hidalgo, written by John Fusco, directed by Joe Johnston, and starring Viggo Mortensen. The Disney Corporation marketed the film as "based on a true story" although subsequent investigations failed to find any evidence of such a race. Lakota scholar, historian and doctor Vine Deloria says "Hopkins' claims are so outrageously false that one wonders why the Disney people were attracted to this material at all."