Biography
Haycox was born in Portland, Oregon, to William James Haycox and the former Martha Burghardt on October 1, 1899.[2] After receiving an education in the local schools of both Washington state and Oregon, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1915 and was stationed along the Mexican border in 1916.[2] During World War I he was in Europe, and after the war he spent one year at Reed College in Portland.[2] In 1923, Haycox graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism,[3] where he also started writing under professor W. F. G. Thatcher.[2] In 1925, Haycox married Jill M. Chord, and they had two children.[2]
He published two dozen novels and about 300 short stories, many of which appeared first in pulp magazines in the early 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was a regular contributor to Collier's Weekly from 1931 and The Saturday Evening Post from 1943. Fans of his work included Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and the latter once wrote, "I read The Saturday Evening Post whenever it has a serial by Ernest Haycox."[4]
His story "Stage to Lordsburg" (1937) was made into the movie Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford and featuring John Wayne in the role that made him a star. The novel Trouble Shooter (1936), originally serialized in Collier's, was the basis for the movie Union Pacific (1939), directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Haycox wrote the screenplay for Montana (1950), directed by Ray Enright, which stars Alexis Smith and Errol Flynn.
Haycox died after unsuccessful cancer surgery in 1950, twelve days after his 51st birthday, in Portland.[1] In 2005, the Western Writers of America voted Haycox one of the 24 best Western authors of the Twentieth Century.
Burnt Creek stories
While living in New York Haycox wrote his first series of interconnected stories set in Burnt Creek, a town in central Oregon.[5]
Stories set during the American Revolution
From 1924 through 1926, Haycox lived in New York City, and he became deeply interested in the American Revolution. Haycox made several trips to battlefields in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts and wrote eight stories and two novelettes set during that era. After publishing one of these stories, Haycox received a letter from a reader stating that Haycox did not describe the uniforms of the soldiers correctly. Haycox promptly purchased a book on the Revolutionary era military uniforms. After his move back to Oregon in 1926, Haycox concentrated on Westerns, and he precisely researched the military uniforms of eras he wrote about.[6]
New Hope stories
Appearing in Collier's between 1933 and 1938, these stories are set in New Hope, a trading town on the Missouri River in the 1880s. Many of these stories are told in the first person, a device Haycox used about a dozen times during his writing career.[7]
Serial and historical novels
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Haycox began to write novels and a few stories which are based on historical events. The first of these was Trouble Shooter (1936), followed by The Border Trumpet (1939), Alder Gulch (1942) and Bugles in the Afternoon (1943). Trouble Shooter, according to Haycox' son, Ernest Haycox, Jr. was based upon Charles Sharman's journal of his experiences as a civil engineer constructing the Union Pacific Railroad to Promontory Point in 1869.[8]
- "His narrative provided my father with a good deal of background and color though, except for the incident of the unhorsed Indian, few useful specifics. Trouble Shooter told the story of Frank Peace, nominally a (civil) engineer working with (Samuel) Reed but mostly (Grenville) Dodge's hired gun on the line. As such, Peace was frequently confined to those iniquitous siding towns, of which Sharman knew little. The novel first appeared in serial form in Collier's magazine in 1936 and was the basis of the Cecil B. DeMille motion picture epic Union Pacific, released in 1939." Wilcox, Jr., 2001
At the same time as these novels were written, Haycox continued to write novels and short stories which had an ambiance and milieu of the West but which were not based on specific events or places. Somewhere in between these two kinds of novels is Trail Town, which is based on Abilene, Kansas, and Marshal Tom Smith,[9] but which is nonetheless a work of fiction, where Abilene becomes River Bend and Tom Smith becomes Dan Mitchell. Haycox did write a story set in Abilene with Sheriff Tom Smith as a character called On Texas Street. Haycox's historical novels are the ones which Professors Etulain and Tanner write most about in their essays and books about Haycox, but Luke Short preferred Haycox's non-historical novels: "My favorite Haycox yarns don’t lean on a known time or place…. In these stories, I suspect Haycox made his own geography, named his own towns and mountains and rivers; he peopled them with tough abrasive characters whose only law was their self will."[10]
Unpublished novel and story
Haycox wrote National Beauty in 1939 about a woman in Oregon who wins beauty contests, and goes to Hollywood, but is not successful in the movie industry. Collier's declined this novel,[11] and the manuscript apparently was destroyed, as it was not included in the preserved Ernest Haycox Papers.[12] Collier's also rejected the story "Boyhood."[13]
Land Rush stories
Starting in 1940 Haycox published five stories in Collier’s about settlers in a town named Ingrid. The stories are "Some Were Brave" (1940) (later retitled "Land Rush"), "Dark Land Waiting" (1940), "The Claim Jumpers" (1940), "Faithfully, Judith" (1942), and "Deep Winter" (1943). A sixth story, "Early Fall," was one of Haycox's rare rejections.[14]
Two novels concurrently serialized
Haycox was one of the most successful writers in the slick magazine market of the 1940s. In 1943 Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post serialized two different Haycox novels at the same time. Collier's serialized The Wild Bunch beginning on August 28, 1943, and continued on September 4, 1943, September 11, 1943, September 18, 1943,
September 25, 1943 and concluded on October 2, 1943. The Saturday Evening Post serialized Bugles in the Afternoon beginning on August 21, 1943 and continued August 28, 1943, September 4, 1943, September 11, 1943, September 18, 1943, September 25, 1943, October 2, 1943, and concluded on October 9, 1943.[15]
The Mercy Family stories
At the end of 1948 through the beginning of 1949 Haycox published three stories, one in Collier's and two in The Saturday Evening Post, featuring the Mercy family. These stories are Haycox's "tribute to the pioneer mother."[16]
