Rajo Jack

While hunting for old photographs at the Torrance Street Fair I came across this snapshot. The name emblazoned across the subject's chest vaguely rung a bell. I'd heard it somewhere before. As is often the case these days, as soon as I got home I did a Google search and turned up the very interesting information that Rajo Jack was in fact one of the very first African/American race car drivers!

Dewey Gatson was his real name and he was born in Tyler, Texas in 1903. By the time he was sixteen Dewey was on the west coast and working as a laborer for the Doc Marcell Medicine Show. He early on showed an aptitude for mechanics and was soon in charge of maintaining the shows fleet of vehicles. By the early 1920s Dewey had taken up automobile racing, a very popular sport in a nation that was still adjusting to, and much intrigued by, the horseless carriage.

Racial prejudice was very prevalent at the time, even in sports. Jackie Robinson's historic entry into major league baseball was still 25 years away. Young Mr. Gatson was likely the only black man attempting to drive at most races he attended. But he wanted badly to compete and resorted to the ploy of using the name Jack DeSoto and claiming to be Portuguese. At other times he is said to have identified himself as American Indian and avoided being photographed. Eventually he was generally, if not universally, accepted and apparently quite well liked. He went on to win a number of important races on the west coast and was at the apex of his career when this snapshot was taken on March 8, 1937. By this time he had obviously gotten over his reluctance to be photographed.

Dewey was often the mechanic as well as the driver of his machine. The Ford model T engine was a popular choice for budget minded racers of the era but it needed considerable modification to make it competitive with purpose built racing engines like the Miller. A number of companies offered equipment to enhance the model T's performance, among them a firm known as RAJO. Dewey came to use RAJO speed equipment and eventually was a distributor for the product. At some point he dropped the DeSoto moniker and added RAJO, thus becoming Rajo Jack.




Rajo Jack's perseverance is exemplified in a memorable story. The day before a 100 mile race in Oakland he was faced with the unhappy fact that his race engine was in pieces. Not to be deterred, he loaded the car on a truck, along with the dissembled motor. He then loaded a few tools and summoned his wife to drive the 400 miles north from their home in the Los Angeles area. As they traveled he proceeded to assemble the car's motor, finishing the task shortly before their arrival. Jack then qualified third and went on to finish second in the race.

At the time the AAA was the sanctioning body for major league auto racing in the United States.
Possibly because of racial prejudice, Jack was never a member and his activities were confined to the so-called "outlaw" circuits of the west coast with occasional forays into the mid-west. As a result he never competed in racing's premier event, the Indianapolis 500.

Auto racing ceased during the war but when it resumed after the hostilities Rajo Jack was again a part of it. But old racing injuries and the loss of an eye while performing stunts on a motorcycle made his participation difficult and he soon retired. Jack died of heart failure on Feb. 27, 1956 and is buried at Roosevelt Memorial Cemetery in Carson, California. The name on his death certificate was reportedly listed as "Rajo Jack".

Today, despite a strong effort by racing's sanctioning bodies to promote minority participation, few black drivers have emerged and fewer still have been as successful as Rajo Jack. Taking into account the considerable obstacles he faced and how he dealt with them there's little doubt that Rajo Jack (and, I would have to say, NASCAR's Wendell Scott from the 1960s) still rank as the greatest black drivers of all time. That may change someday but for now it's simply the truth.

Someday a movie will be made about Rajo Jack!

And this is a studio portrait of the man himself, Dewey Gatson --AKA "Rajo Jack". Might I suggest Snoop to portray him in the movie version of his legendary life?

Merry Christmas

This cool scene, calling to mind Gram's Christmas Village, was produced by Bob at Rat Rod Studios. There is also an animated version that can be viewed at RatRodStudios.com, along with many other unique and artistic scenes. I supplied the photograph of the car for this composition.

Lil' Buckaroos

Kids have been playing "Cowboys & Indians" almost since the opening of the American frontier began. By the 1870s sensational (and mostly fictitious) accounts of the exploits of Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok and others were available in the so called "Dime Novels" of the day. These luridly illustrated paperbacks were published to appeal to young boys and appeal they did. Many of the legends of the Old West, some persisting to this day, originated in these cheap books that were often written by Easterners who'd never even been West.

By the turn of the century the newly invented medium of the cinema was showing dramas that depicted Western story lines. One of the first and perhaps the most famous was "The Great Train Robbery". Seeing the life and death struggles of cowboys, indians, outlaws and lawmen played out on the screen only encouraged youngsters to imitate the scenes in their play. Almost every boy participated and soon many girls too.

In the picture above, which dates from the early 20th century, a couple of boys act out a gunfight scenario in what looks to be an actual Western location. How lucky are they?

By the late 40's, early '50s a would be cowboy could buy just about everything he needed for a complete outfit. This kid is hardcore, camping out in backyard!


This fortunate little fella has two guns, just like the silver screen heroes seen in the Saturday matinee. Looks like he knows what to do with them too!

This cute little cowgirl has a complete outfit -- including the ever present cap gun.

And perhaps the luckiest kid of all, though indeed, he my be a little too young to appreciate it. The handsome pony is splendidly fitted out in the best manner, complete with a Winchester rifle that is so realistic that it's hard to tell if is real or a toy. The animal and his tack are far superior to that offered by the door to door photographers found wandering neighborhoods enticing kids and their parents to buy pictures of the little buckaroo atop the pony. I have a feeling the pony is a gift from an adoring relative or family friend.

Kid's games of "Cowboys & Indians" probably reached its high point in the 1950's. After that other interests, like science fiction and eventually video games, began to push interest in the Old West and its characters aside. Today Western movies occasionally capture significant box-office interest but it is mainly driven by adults, in most cases those same kids seen in these pictures -- now grown up and nostalgic for an earlier time.

But it was fun while it lasted!

Cap Gun Wars

In the late 1950s, when television Westerns were at the height of their popularity and just about every kid wanted to be a cowboy, there were two cap pistols that stood at the top of every kid's wish list. These were the Fanner 50 made by Mattel and the Stallion 45, a product of the Nichols Company of Pasadena, Texas. Both were fine weapons (well, alright "toys") that actually chambered metallic replicas of real cartridges. Individual caps could be placed inside each cartridge to produce a "bang" and a little smoke. And in the case of the Fanner 50 "shootin' shell" feature, plastic bullets could be seated in the cartridge to produce an effective range of, oh, several feet. Pretty neat stuff or, as Mattel's commercials repeatedly told us, "if it's Mattel, it's swell!"

Another of Mattel's claims was that the Fanner 50 was "the most authentic cap pistol in the world". I would dispute that assertion and did in fact choose to arm myself with the Stallion 45. I was not too concerned with the fanning function as my research of history had revealed that this technique was seldom employed in the Old West. As for caps that went "pop", I had my favorite vocal indication of a gun shot and that would suffice. I also knew that, though I may have received the gun as a gift, no one was going to replenish my supply of caps. And I couldn't afford to do so myself. So the whizz-bang (and very saleable) features of the two revolvers were mostly lost on me.

For nearly as long as I'd been interested in Cowboys and Indians (a popular term at the time) I'd been fascinated by and sought to learn more about what the times were really like. Even at this early age I recognized that much of what I saw on TV and in the movies was a fraud. Of course my attention to and concern with detail went largely unappreciated among my playmates. My insistence on authentic details and elaborate set ups to our scenarios was often greeted with impatience as they sought to get on with the shootin'. I could be kind of a pain in the butt.

So authenticity was my most important consideration. I had several gun books (a subject covered in a previous post) and I very well knew what a Colt Peacemaker looked like. Take a look at the photo above. The gun at top is an original Colt .45 caliber Peacemaker with original elephant ivory grips. The gun below is a Nichols Stallion 45. How much more authentic can you get in a pot metal cap gun? It's obvious that the patterns for the casting molds of the Stallion were made from an original Colt. The handle is the same size as the real deal (which may have been a problem for younger buckaroos). The original Peacemaker was a single action, meaning the hammer had to be fully cocked before the trigger would discharge the piece. The Stallion 45 (and the Fanner 50) are double action, meaning that pulling the trigger cocks and discharges the weapon. For this reason the Stallion 45 has a slightly larger trigger guard. The Colt offered standard barrel lengths of 7.5" (shown here), 5.5" and 4.75". The Stallion struck an easy handling compromise at 6.5". The Stallion 45 included cartridges that load into the cylinder in exactly the same way as the Colt. It's a beautiful piece and I think I chose well.

For comparison here are a couple Fanner 50s. The deviations from the actual Colt revolver are fairly obvious. The cylinder is shorter and the area behind the cylinder (called the recoil shield) is longer. The trigger guard is much larger and elongated to accommodate the double action trigger. The hammer spur is wider, presumably to facilitate the "fanning" function. The overall size of the Fanner 50 seems slightly scaled down from the original Colt Peacemaker. These differences aren't necessarily bad, they're just differences. Having never owned one I cannot speak to the function and reliability of the Fanner 50. I can say that 50 years on my Stallion 45 no longer indexes it's cylinder properly and the loading gate does not stay closed. It's to be expected that hard play has taken its toll on most toys and these cap pistols are no exception.

The Fanner 50 seems to have been the more popular with the junior cowboy set. Mattel apparently had a huge advertising budget and their entire line of toys was represented by skillfully crafted commercials that would be nearly irresistible to kids. Prices for collectible Fanner 50s range from $100 to $500, depending on condition and accessories (like holster and original packaging) that might accompany the gun. The Stallion 45 seems to command a little more, probably because fewer were produced. Going into the late '60s interest in the Old West waned and production of most of the top of the line cap pistols gradually dried up. Western style toy guns are still available today (with, of course, the red tipped barrel to distinguish them from real guns) but seem rather uninspiring compared to those from the halcyon years of the TV horse opera.

All things considered, I don't think there's any doubt that the Stallion 45 was in actuality "the most authentic cap pistol in the world.

The Fanner 50

In the late 1950s television featured many popular shows set in the Old West -- or at least the script writer's conception of it. They were wildly popular with kids and adults alike and amounted to some of the most important programing aired by the networks. Naturally, a variety of cowboy/gunfighter/lawman merchandise would come to be offered, particularly to the younger audience interested in reenacting the exploits of their heroes of the silver screen. Cap pistols (and long arms) had been around since the previous century but a more sophisticated audience now demanded toy arms that more convincingly replicated the characteristics of real guns. As the design and function of cap guns reached its zenith during this period the Mattel toy company offered the Fanner 50. The commercial above was designed to illustrate their products and at the same time convince every kid that they had to have one.

The Fanner 50 was an excellent cap gun. Originally designed for repeated fire using a roll of caps, the later model utilized individual cartridges that each incorporated a single cap. It loaded the cylinder's chambers with cartridges just like the real revolver and actually fired a plastic projectile while producing a small puff of smoke! The realism was nothing short of remarkable and the fabulous marketing campaign put forward by Mattel made it probably the most desired toy six shooter available. A lot were sold.

In another post I've noted my objections to the Fanner 50 as compared to the Stallion 45 but there's something very interesting in the commercial clip that indicates Mattel my have tried a bit of slight of hand to disguise these deficiencies. Play the video, pausing the action at :04, :11, and :36. Compare the profile of the pistol with the picture of a Fanner 50 at the top of this post. It's not the same gun! Apparently an early prototype or even a real Colt Peacemaker was used in the filming of the commercial. In actual fact, the Fanner 50 loads from the opposite side rather than the gate (clearly seen at :11) shown in the commercial, which is identical to that of the real Colt -- and the Stallion 45. Apparently "truth in advertising" was taken rather casually in this slick and very appealing ad. So, though it may be "swell", the Fanner 50 is hardly -- as the commercial claims -- "the most authentic cap pistol in the world". For my money, that title goes to the Stallion 45.

Stupid Truck Tricks