The Ghillie Shirt

[CollinMacD]

I don't think people really thought that's what "cowboys" looked like. The LR was a masked superhero, riding in to save the day with his loyal sidekick. Pretty sure even kids understood the difference between the Lone Ranger, other movie & TV cowboys, and working cowboys.

Except for cavalry soldiers -- especially air cav. Those guys are notoriously hard to train. ;)

Actually, the mountain men who settled the west in the early 1700's through the early 1800's did have deer skin or buckskin pullover shirts that laced up in the front, with fringes on the sleeve so water could drip off the sleeve and fringes on the pant seem, also made of buckskin, more like chaps, or water drip page. Good example are woodsmen (pioneers) who settle Kentucky, Tennessee, and so on, wore this type of clothing. Again Mountain men modeled their animal skin clothing from the Northern Plain Indians. Colder climates the Indians wore animal skins, and the Ghillie shirt certainly resembles the shirts of the Indians and Mountain Men of the U.S. and Canada, more so than any of the Scottish Highlands of the same time period. Ironically, most of the American Mountain men from this period happen to be Scottish, Irish and French. There were many style animal and wool coats and jackets, but I am focusing on the "Ghillie" style to show you, the Ghillie shirt of Scottish fame, really was a knock off of the Mountain Man and American Indian type. If you really think of it it was the Mountain Man and Indian who settled the west well before the wagon trains moved from the bigger cities in the east, which brought cattle and sheep that was the start of the cowboy of the mid to late 1800's to the very early 1900's of Wild West fame. Hard to disprove actual History.