James Leandria 'Old Slim' Mayo


b. June 19, 1912 Ethel, Mississippi
d. May 16, 1998 Sierra Vista, Arizona


 Slim with his horse Fox in the early 1940s


Slim teaching guitar at Litle Outfit Ranch School, early 40s


Slim and Kay (center) standing in front of their place in Canelo with their best man
and maid-of-honor Jack Gowell (left) and Johnie Gowell (right).

  A tall, skinny cowboy leaning against his family's disabled vehicle near Cortaro Farms Road in 1936 caught the eye of a woman driving by. Pulling over she hollered, "If you know anything about horses, I'll pay you $25 a month to work at the Glover Ranch in Avra Valley." Twenty-four-year-old Jim Mayo jumped at the chance. At 6'2" tall and weighing in at 160 pounds dripping wet, he was known as Slim from an early age. Growing up in rural Oklahoma, he was riding his own horse, carrying his own rifle, driving a team that pulled a hay baler by the age of six, and earning a whopping $1 a day.

 Shortly after Slim arrived in Arizona, film director Wesley Ruggles asked him to manage the livestock and do stunt work for the movie, "Arizona", starring William Holden and Jean Arthur. The following year, Slim met Kit and Buel Hutchinson, recent transplants from Chicago who had bought the Little Outfit ranch in the San Rafael Valley. The couple planned to start a boarding school and needed a helper to get all the necessary permits and tend livestock. The young wrangler was soon enlisted to teach the students to ride, rope, shoe horses and repair tack. Slim showed them how to throw a diamond hitch over a pack string, track wildlife and roll a cigarette single-handedly. For the first through eighth graders, many of them asthmatic boys who had been sent to Arizona for the healthy, clean air, Slim was a bigger-than-life cowboy, a combination of John Wayne and Gary Cooper. He played the guitar and the harmonica at the same time, could ride anything with four legs and told tall tales that rivaled anything the kids had seen on the silver screen.

 Slim met Katherine 'Kay' Hollans at a dance at the Elgin Club. They took an immediate liking to each other and married November 28, 1947. Over the years Slim worked at many ranches in the area, including the Little Boquillos near Fairbank, Mattie Johnson's ranch in Elgin, and Sid Vale's ranch in the Chiricahuas. From 1954 to 1974, he served as a firefighter with the Ft. Huachuca Fire Department and worked on his days off at the Sands Ranch in Whetstone.

 In 1992 seven former students of the Little Outfit discovered their hero, Slim Mayo, was still living in the area. Six years later twenty-two people traveled from across the country to honor him one last time. Although very ill, he made good his vow to live long enough to see them again and share their memories. He passed away one week later on May 16, 1998.

Excerpted from More Hidden Treasures of Santa Cruz County, by Betty Barr. Photos courtesy of Slim's daughter, Kathy Mayo.

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