Kilts in the old west

[McLeanWelsh]

Is there any evidence of people wearing kilts in the old west ?

Imagine a cowboy boots, kilt, cowboy hat and a double gun belt. Seems a strange sight but stranger things have happened.


I searched The internet and couldnt find anything on it.

Cheers, McLean

[LitTrog]

[Riverkilt]

Well....lots of kilts in the "New" West....



Have worn my kilt with cowboy type hats and shirts. Have tried them with knee high cavalry boots and find the kilt hem and boot tops snag on each other. Don' t know how practical they would have been or where someone in the Old West would have ordered up a kilt. Guessing it'd be unlikely - but sure would love it if someone found an old pic.

Course in the old west Native peoples wore unbifurcated garments - common sense - but don't know that they ever pleated them. The garments Hopi wear for ceremonial dances are, like kilts, a type of skirt - but the Hopi dictionary's translate their word for them into the English word Kilt.

[Mael Coluim]

Post removed.

[Zardoz]

I did quite a bit of digging into this subject a couple years ago, and didn't find any hard evidence for kilts in the 'old west' with or without any of the aformentioned acoutrama that scares the children so. But it sort of became a absence of evidence vs. evidence of absence thing. There were a lot of 'colorful' folks in those days, so I'd think it's not totally out of the question that some guys might have worn kilts, maybe just for special occasions etc.

[Sir William]

In my many years of reading the history of the American West, I've only come across one reference to anyone in a kilt. In Scotsman in Buckskin by Mae Reed Porter (1963) she makes the statement that Captain William Drummond Stewart, a half-pay British cavalry officer touring the West, wore a kilt in Royal Stewart tartan when he met Dr John McGloughlin in 1834.

I've never seen any other references to a kilt being worn, and I highly suspect the above reference was a romantic assumption made by the author, not the result of an eye-witness observation (there are no footnotes). Its possible that the author confused Stewart with his son, of the same name, was also an Army officer, who served in the A&S during the Crimean War (and was awarded the Victoria Cross).

[Woodsheal]

Perhaps a well-off Scottish-immigrant ranch owner or townsman, who brought a kilt with him into the American west, wearing it to a formal occasion? Possible, if a bit of a stretch. But, a kilt worn with cowboy working dress??!! Or a gunfighter in a kilt???!!! Good God, no...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sir William]

Perhaps a well-off Scottish-immigrant ranch owner or townsman, who brought a kilt with him into the American west, wearing it to a formal occasion?

Reminds me of Brian Keith in "The Rare Breed." I love it when he comes down the stairs in his regiments (trews admittedly) playing the pipes.

[fcgeil]

I'll have to see if I can dig up the references again, but I seem to recall having seen a couple of other references to kilts in the Old West. There were certainly colourful Scots and Irishmen, so it isn't completely out of the question, at any rate.

[walkerk]

http://www.militarymuseum.org/WallaceGuard.html