Career
Hopkins became a cowboy and professional horseman in the American West, where he gained a reputation for distance riding. In his autobiographical memoir (unpublished in his lifetime) and accounts to friends, he claimed to have been featured as one of the "Rough Riders of the World" in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which toured in Europe and Great Britain, as well as the United States.
A number of his stories have been disputed by historians, for example, that he had won more than 400 races. He also said he had raced in a ceremonial 3,000-mile ride that passed the Gulf of Syria and the inland borders of two other countries, which was supposed to have taken place in Arabia in 1890.
Hopkins' age is disputed. When he married in Los Angeles in 1929, he wrote on the marriage license that he was 44 years old. That would place his birth at about 1885 rather than 1865, however his 1905 photo, reprinted on this page, is clearly not that of a 20-year-old, indicating that the 1885 birthdate is highly unlikely.
His claim to have been a rider with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was disputed by the curator of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, who said his name is nowhere to be found in the archives. Hopkins has been found as listed in 1917 as being employed by the Ringling Brothers Circus as a horse performer.
In the 1940s, the elderly Hopkins was honored with a position as trail judge for the annual Green Mountain Horse Club's 100-mile endurance ride. Up to the time of his death in 1951, he remained an outspoken champion of the threatened mustang which he called "the most significant animal on the North American continent."
Frank Hopkins is interred in Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens County, New York City.
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