Albert Merrill,The Ageless Negro Bronco Buster

Albert Merrill was born in 1880 in Travis County near Austin, Texas. His family farmed, worked on ranches, and

Albert Merrill 
1880-1965

picked cotton. When Albert was a boy his job was to hold the reins while the White ranchers mounted their horses. By the age of 15 he found that he was good with horses. Really good. That is where his career as a bronco buster began. Even though he was only a little over 5 feet 7 inches tall, Albert Merrill became a bigger than life bronco buster. For 75 years Albert traveled from ranch to ranch in west and central Texas, east Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

Newspapers.com

He even spent a long stretch of time in Tampico, Mexico where he became fluent in Spanish. Albert Merrill was highly sought after by ranchers to ride the most difficult horses that no one else could break. He continued to ride and break horses into his seventies. A San Angelo newspaper referred to him as “the ageless Negro bronco buster”. Of course he was thrown a lot, but he only had fractures twice in his long career. The last fracture was to his leg. Even though it left him with a limp, Albert continued to ride. 

Albert, Mary, and their seven children
(Photo from Ancestry.com)

Albert married in 1904 to Mary Robison. They made San Angelo, Texas their home and there they raised six daughters and one son. In 1964 Albert and Mary celebrated 60 years of marriage. Albert died the next year at the age of eighty five. He is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas.