Biography

Eugene Manlove Rhodes was born on 19 January 1869, at Tecumseh, Nebraska, the son of Hinman and Julia Manlove Rhodes. His father, who had been a tailor, served with Company H, 28th Infantry Regiment Illinois, during the American Civil War. He mustered out on 15 March, 1866 at Brownsville, Texas, with the rank of Full Colonel. After the war he served in the Nebraska Legislature and later as superintendent of the Mescalero Indian Reservation in New Mexico.

Rhodes bought his first saddle as a teenager with soap coupons his family had saved. Between 1884 and 1886 he worked on cattle ranches like the Bar Cross on the Jornada del Muerto in central New Mexico. It was around this time that his reputation in the Southwest as an expert horseman became somewhat legendary. By time he was 16, Rhodes had become a skillful stone mason and road builder. He assisted in the construction of the road between Engle and Tularosa, New Mexico. After attending the University of the Pacific, San Jose for two years, Rhodes tried prospecting and hauling freight before he started his own 6,000 acre ranch in Sierra County, New Mexico. The ranch was nestled in the San Andres Mountains within a valley that would later bear his name.

In 1899 Rhodes married May Davison (1871-1957) a widow from Appalachian, New York. A few years later the couple moved to New York after May's father, Louis Davison, became ill. There Rhodes farmed and began writing about his beloved New Mexico. His stories were first accepted by McClure's Magazine and later The Saturday Evening Post.

Of the many novels and short stories Rhodes penned, "Good Men and True" (1911), "Bransford in Arcadia Or, the Little Eohippus" (1913), "Desire of the Moth" (1916), "West is West" (1917), "The Come on" (1920), "Say Now Shiboleth" (1921), "Stepson of Light" (1921), "Copper Streak Trail" (1922), "Once in the Saddle" (1925), "Paso Por Aqui" (1926), "The Hired Man on Horseback" (1928) and "Beyond the Desert" (1934) were among his more popular. Even though his stories were well-liked by the public, he never achieved financial success. The majority of his works appeared in newspapers and magazines before they were released as books.

Rhodes and his wife returned to New Mexico in 1926, living first in Santa Fe, then Alamogordo and finally at White Mountain near Three Rivers in a house provided for them by former Senator Albert Bacon Fall. In 1930, ill health forced Rhodes to move to Pacific Beach, California. There he was accepted by the writer's colony that existed in those days near La Jolla.

Eugene Manlove Rhodes died of a heart attack on 27 June, 1934, at his home in Pacific Beach. He was survived by his wife, a son and a step-son. His last request was to be buried in the San Andres Mountains near his old ranch. For many years after his death, groups of his admirers would gather by his gravesite on the anniversary of his passing. Many considered Rhodes as the most accurate of the chroniclers of the old Southwest. In 1938 May Rhodes published "The Hired Man on Horseback" My Story of Eugene Manlove Rhodes, a biography of her husband but also a warm autobiography of the woman he ranched with.
- IMDb mini biography by: John F. Barlow