August 2000

By Barry Serafin – ABCNews.com

When Emmett Brislawn calls, his horses come running. But these are not just any horses. They are living history, descendants of the first horses brought to the new world 500 years ago.

It was the Spanish conquistadors who brought them to the Americas. The horses later spread across the West with Indian tribes.

But, by the early 1900s, the horses known as Spanish mustangs, were on the brink of extinction. That’s when the Brislawn family stepped in.

Emmett’s father, Bob Brislawn, a government surveyor, admired the increasingly scarce horses.

In 1916, he came to the rolling hills of northeast Wyoming as a homesteader. He built this cabin, where Emmett would be born, and he set out to save the Spanish mustang.

Starting with the few true Spanish mustangs he could find, he spent the rest of his life building up a herd.

Bob Brislawn died in 1979. His gravestone reads: “Mr. Mustang, the Wyoming Kid.”