It was a time before roads, before barbed wire fences, before there was really anything west of the Missouri River.

And until now, little has been written about South Dakota's time as the country's last open range at the turn of the 20th century.

The late George Philip, a Rapid City lawyer, wrote about his life as a cowboy in central South Dakota during the early 1900s in a series of letters to his three adult children that he began writing in 1937.

Over a period of five years, he wrote a total of 21 letters that captured the flair of the period and revealed himself as a great storyteller. More than 50 years after his death, his family is sharing with the public what Philip called his legacy to his children.

Cathie Draine of Black Hawk, one of Philip's grandchildren, proposed to the South Dakota State Historical Society Press nearly four years ago turning the letters into a book. Their response was a resounding yes. "Cowboy Life: The Letters of George Philip" has just been published and is already being called a classic.

"It was just big lonesome country, and you really get a sense of that in these letters - a sense of what it was like to be a cowboy," said Nancy Tystad Koupal, director of South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

"I think it's a classic of the state's time as the open range of the country," she said. "It's a great book about a part of the state's history that is not given much coverage. I think that the open range in Texas and Kansas gets a lot of attention, but because we're a smaller state with fewer historians, we just haven't really had the focus on the state's open range era. So this is a chance for our history to shine."

Koupal said when Cathie Draine and her husband, Leroy, brought the letters to her, she knew it was an exciting project even before she read the letters.

George Philip is the nephew of James "Scotty" Philip, for whom the town of Philip is named.

She asked the Draines to leave a copy of the letters for her to read.

"I just fell in love with them," she said. "You fall in love with the character of George Philip. You fall in love with his life and really realize quickly that you have a classic in your hands once you started reading them," she said.

Koupal calls the letters and new book a great read.

"I like to call it laugh-out-loud delightful. It's gritty at times and it's true to life with a lot of realism. It's not glamorized cowboys. It's the real deal," she said.

Philip's purpose of the letters, he wrote to his children, was to "chronicle the uneventful story of an unimportant man." That is a statement readers will quickly dispel.

"George Philip keeps talking about himself and his era as just being ordinary when it's quite clear that he's anything but ordinary," Koupal said. "He's extraordinary. They say sometimes going to the Army settles people. I think for him, coming out of the range kind of grounded him - for life. He still remembered his friends and those people. They're all larger than life to him and an important period in his life. He didn't have a really long life, but I think he had a full life."

She said through his letters and poetry, it is obvious that he was very cultured man. "He was very articulate and very well educated in ways that you really don't see today. He knew his poetry and knew his classics. He was quite the guy," she said.

George Philip was born in Scotland in 1880. By age 7, he had lost both of his parents and was raised by members of a very large extended family. At age 16, he began a five-year naval engineering apprenticeship.

Extremely long hours combined with the struggle to keep up with his studies brought him to the realization that military life was not for him. He came to the United States, where he worked on an uncle's ranch in Kansas until he was called to return to fulfill the remainder of his apprenticeship. This pushed him further west to Colorado until his uncle "Scotty" in South Dakota offered to put him work.

From 1899 to 1903, he worked as a cowpuncher on the open range of South Dakota. As the end of the cowboy era drew to a close and the last of the open range was dwindling, and after being swindled out of cattle his uncle had given him, Philip decided he wanted to pursue a degree in law to ensure he would never fall victim to a bad contract again. However, he did not have a high school diploma.

"When he wanted to go to the University of Michigan, he and Scotty and the principal of the Fort Pierre High School created an entire high school career for him that did not in fact exist," Draine said. "So he went off to the University of Michigan with basically a sixth grade education and emerged as a lawyer of great credibility and respect and knowledge."

Draine said even if he had not been swindled, her grandfather would have realized in some point in time that chasing cattle and chasing numbers on a ledger sheet was probably not what he wanted to do.

"He came from the poorest of a very large family in Scotland that did contain doctors, teachers and lawyers, so certainly there was that potential in his background," she said.

After a successful career as a prominent Rapid City lawyer and state attorney, he never forgot his friends and experiences working on his uncle's L-7 cattle ranch.

His stories, through the series of 21 letters, appear in print form in the order he wrote them.

The South Dakota State Historical Society Press added extensive footnotes to the letters, which enhance the letters, creating in essence a historical reference.

"The historical press, in producing those footnotes, did what it does best - it preserved the history. They did a fine job," Draine said. "They are among the best, most readable, most informative, most academically exciting footnotes I have ever found in a book of this time. I could not be happier.

"I was thrilled at the connections they had been able to make and the leads they provided to anyone who wants to know more about the events, the people, the time. My view is those footnotes are a gold mine for someone in college or even in high school who wants to explore that time period in central South Dakota," she said.

The South Dakota State Historical Society Press also enlisted the talents of western artist and president of the Artists of the Black Hills Mick B. Harrison to illustrate the book.

"I think his sketches are absolutely on the money," Draine said. "They add a great deal to the book."

Richard W. Slatta, professor of history at North Carolina State University, wrote the afterword, which puts all of the events in the book in a broad historical perspective, which adds academic credibility, Draine said.

The book is available at The Journey Museum's gift shop, Borders book store and other locations throughout the Black Hills. It can also be bought online at www.sdshspress.com.

The book was released in time for the town of Philip's centennial celebration, June 15, 16 and 17.

"We tried very hard to get it out for that event," Koupal said. "It seemed it would be appropriate for that event. The people who are probably most intimately interested in it, because they might be mentioned in the pages, are going to be there in Philip."

Draine will be at the event to sign copies of the book. Other Philip family members will also be attending.

And even though each of the letters begin personally addressed to his children with "My dear Geordie, Jean and Bob" and end with "Affectionately, Dad," Draine is sure her grandfather would not mind others reading them.

"I think people in this area would find that it would rejuvenate their own personal memories of their family and events of their childhood or bring new life to stories they had been told," she said. Draine said that as she worked with her grandfather's letters, she did not believe he wrote them just for his children.

"I think he knew in his heart that at some point in time, these would be released to the public. If I didn't feel that, I don't think I could have done the work," she said. "When we realized that there was this opening, and everything appeared to be in order to release them, we were very, very pleased to be able to do this. I think my grandpa not only would have understood, he would have said, 'Well done.'"

'Cowboy Life': The authors

Cathie Draine

Cathie Draine is the granddaughter of George Philip. Draine, a retired teacher and freelance writer, contributes a weekly column to the Rapid City Journal. Draine notes of her grandfather that "he was a man without pretense. He wanted people to understand the truly unique period of our history - the open range - and the demands of the work, that formed, not only the character of the cowboys, but also the lifelong bonds of friendship, concern and respect."

To hear Draine explain the efforts behind the book and some of her favorite letters, visit the Journal's multimedia page.

Richard W. Slatta

Richard W. Slatta is professor of history at North Carolina State University. His numerous books and articles on cowboys and the American West include "Cowboy: The Illustrated History and Cowboys of the Americas." He has received several awards for his work. For more information, go to Slatta's Web site, www.cowboyprof.com.

Mick B. Harrison

Award-winning professional artist Mick B. Harrison is a painter and illustrator of Western and prairie subjects. He is the current president of the Artists of the Black Hills. Harrison received the William F. Cody Award for Art, and the Nick Eggenhofer Award for Western Art and he has twice been nominated as Artist of the Year by the South Dakota Hall of Fame and the Center for Western Studies. For more information, go to his Web site, www.mickharrisonpaintings.com.

About the bookAbout the book: "Cowboy Life: The Letters of George Philip," 386 pages, 19 black-and-white illustrations, two maps. $25.95.

Authors: Cathie Draine (editor and introduction), Richard W. Slatta (afterword), Mick B. Harrison (illustrations)

Buy the book: Books available directly from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press: 900 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501, phone 773-6009, fax 773-6041, e-mail sdshspress@state.sd.us, go to www.sdshspress.com, or buy the book at The Journey Museum gift shop and Borders Books & Music.

If you goWhat: Cathie Draine signing her book: "Cowboy Life: The Letters of George Philip"

When: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 16

Where: Philip Centennial celebration in Philip