Sunday Favorites: Boots, Bobcats, and Bone Mizell

If you’ve never heard of Bone Mizell, don’t worry, he’s the kind of character you don’t just learn about in history books. You hear about him in tall tales passed down at campfires, whispered over poker tables, and chuckled about in Florida’s cattle country. A whip-cracking, joke-cracking, moonshine-loving Cracker Cowboy, Bone Mizell was as much myth as man. But make no mistake: he was real and unforgettable.

Napoleon Bonaparte Mizell, known simply as “Bone,” was likely born in 1853, though accounts vary, even among his own family. Some say his real name was Morgan. Others say Morgan was his father. The gravestone at Joshua Creek Cemetery says “Napoleon Bonepart Mizell.” Either way, he was born into the saddle and shaped by Florida’s scrubby heartland, a land of mosquito-choked cattle drives and free-ranging rustlers​.

Bone worked for Ziba King, a cattle baron so rich he paid teachers in gold and beat professional gamblers at poker just for fun. But Bone quickly became more famous than his boss, not for wealth, but for wit.

One of Bone’s most quoted episodes took place in a courtroom. He sauntered into court with his ten-gallon hat planted proudly on his head. The judge barked, “Mizell! I fine you $10 for contempt, you came in here with your hat on!” Without missing a beat, Bone flipped a $20 bill onto the bench and declared, “Here, take twenty. I walked in with it on and I’m walking out with it on”​. Respect for the law in Florida's cowboy country? Let’s just say it came with a wink and a tip of the hat.

Rustling, the old-school word for cattle theft, was rampant in Mizell’s time. Bone admitted to stealing thousands of cows for Ziba King. But when he tried to nab one “little ole speckled calf” for himself, he was finally caught. His response to the judge? “I must have stole 10,000 cows for Mr. King and everybody laughs at that, but now I go and steal one for myself and you want to send me to the pen.” He was sent to the pen, but only briefly and pardoned after a warm welcome and a banquet at the prison. Naturally, he left with a speech and a smile​.

Bone lived to entertain. Whether it was riding into a Tampa saloon on horseback, pipe clenched in his teeth, or singing “chicken pie, chicken pie” during church hymns, he thrived on laughs. He once poured castor oil into his boots and told onlookers, “I’m oiling my boots. Most folks oil them from the outside in. My way’s better.” Another time, he entertained cowboys around the campfire with a yarn about two bobcats fighting so fiercely they scratched their way up into the sky only to conclude, “Didn’t see them today, but I know they’re still fighting. The fur’s still afallin’". His antics weren’t just amusing they were a coping mechanism in a harsh life. Cowboys like Bone faced brutal conditions: summer heat, winter chills, swampy trails, and weeks at a time without comfort or company. Humor was as essential as their saddles.

Bone Mizell died the way a Florida folk hero should dramatically and a bit mysteriously. On July 11, 1921, he laid down at the Ft. Ogden train depot after drinking moonshine, and never woke up. His timing was almost poetic. The decades that followed brought fences, regulations, and a gradual end to Florida’s frontier freedom. Cowboys swapped their whips for barbed wire. The open range closed for good in 1949, and today, cattle are counted by drones instead of drovers. Bone wouldn’t have stood for it. He belonged to a different era one where a man could brand a steer with his teeth (as legend goes), sing nonsense in church just for laughs, and oil his boots from the inside.

So was Bone Mizell a hero? A hooligan? A harmless drunk with a good sense of timing? He was all those things and more. Like Paul Bunyan with a Southern drawl. His stories might be exaggerated, even fictional. But they reflect the swagger, spirit, and sheer absurdity of the Cracker Cowboy era. In the end, Bone Mizell isn’t just a man you read about. He’s someone you remember and someone Florida won’t soon forget.