WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) – After partnering with Humanities, the Texas the Museum of North Texas History is proud to present Vaqueros: Genesis of the Texas Cowboys exhibition.

It follows the journey of Bill Wittliff, a photographer who traveled to a ranch in northern Mexico back in the 70s, where Vaqueros were still practicing methods of working cattle in traditional ways. Curator of the Museum, Leanne Ray said for years, the museum has tried to bring in more voices that represent the community and is pleased that this exhibit can shed light on the Hispanic community.

“A lot of the community that come in wasn’t the standard white European came in as cowboys because they were accepted and welcomed, on the Waggoner ranch just outside of Wichita Falls, and Wichita county. So when you look at the early census, we did have people of color, in the community, they just weren’t on Wichita Falls property because they were on the ranches working as cowboys…it’s nice to bring out the fact that Texas cowboys started with Vaqueros, show them that we do want to tell stories that include them, not exclude them,” Curator of Museum of North Texas History, said.

One of the board members of the museum, George Adams also loaned several artifacts of his western collection from his ranch where a lot of Vaqueros worked as well. The exhibit will be at the Museum until May 13th and has a bilingual translation of each photograph and the description of the story behind it.