Harper Baylor Lee - 1910
Harper Baylor Lee - 1910

Harper Baylor Lee - 1910

GILLETT, JAMES HARPER [HARPER BAYLOR LEE] (1884–1941). James Harper Gillett, known as Harper Baylor Lee, the first American matador de toros, son of Helen (Baylor) and James Buchanan Gillett, was born at Ysleta, Texas, on September 5, 1884. His mother was the daughter of Col. George Wythe Baylor, commander of the ranger company in which his father served. In 1889 the couple was divorced at El Paso, and James Harper subsequently lived with his mother and grandparents in the Baylor home at Ysleta. His father moved from El Paso, settled on a ranch in Presidio County, and had no contact with his son for twenty-four years. In 1895 Harper's mother married Samuel M. Lee, a resident of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Harper joined the family there and enrolled in high school in 1899. He signed himself Harper Baylor Lee, though he was never legally adopted. His schoolmates and companions called him El Gringo Harper. Lee showed early promise in bullfighting games and received invitations to bull ranches, where he attended the breeders' testings of their young fighting stock and showed exceptional talent with a real cape in front of charging real horns. He finished high school in 1904 and worked for his stepfather's firm on railway construction jobs in central Mexico for the next four years. Throughout this period he took time off frequently to appear as an aficionado in amateur corridas. Under the tutelage of his friend Francisco Gómez, El Chiclanero, a retired matador from Spain, Lee quit his job to try his hand as a professional torero. He made his first appearance as a novillero, or apprentice matador, at the bullring in Guadalajara on July 28, 1908, launching a remarkable career. On February 20, 1910, in the Plaza de Toros at Monterrey he was awarded his alternativa in a formal ceremony making him a full-fledged matador de toros, the first North American to earn such rank. The public cheered him as "Opper Li." He was excellent in all three parts of the bullfight: with the cape, especially with the banderillas, and with the muleta and sword. Behaving with respect for the technical tenets and traditions of Spanish bullfighting, he demonstrated valor, spirit, skill, and art. He appeared as a professional matador in fifty-two corridas in twenty-four Mexican cities and killed 100 bulls. Twice he suffered nearly fatal gorings. His career was cut short by the chaos of the Mexican Revolution and its accompanying anti-American feelings. He "cut the pigtail" in the formal ceremony of retirement on December 3, 1911. He was reconciled with his father in 1914, and after the deaths of both Helen and Samuel Lee, Lee changed his name to Harper Baylor Gillett. In San Antonio, Texas, in 1915 he married Roxa Dunbar, whom he had first met before a bullfight in San Luis Potosí. They owned and operated a poultry farm on the outskirts of San Antonio. They had no children. Gillett died of cancer, after a long and painful illness on June 26, 1941, and was survived by his wife. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgi24

Area: Out of Area / Out of Area

Source: El Paso Historical Society

Uploaded by: El Paso Museum of History

Comments

Add a comment
Thank you for your comment

Report this entry

Choose the most important reason for this report

Your name

Your email address

Optional detail

Thank you for your report

More from the same community-collection

Smoke Free Anthony, Texas - 2017

Passing of a smoke-free ordinance in Anthony, Texas on Monday, ...

USA vs. Mexico

My dad with his friends at a USA vs. Mexico soccer game.

Young Soldier In Korea

Station in South Korea

Family Photograph - Texas State University

Leaving my brother at his school - Texas State University.

McCarthy & Sheik Nuradeen

Jumah Prayer in Gallup New Mexico October 2017

Muslim Families

Sheik Nuradeen, McCarthy & Families in Gallup New Mexico ...

Family

Our family is small but it is big in love.

Christmas

Our Christmas tree 2017

1970 Jorge & Rosa Angulo's honeymoon in Guatemala.

1970 Jorge & Rosa Angulo's honeymoon in Guatemala. Picture taken ...

Carlota, Hermila & Perla circa 1938

Taken in front of the monument to the Revolution, Mexico City; ...

1970JorgeRosemary&JuanR

Jorge I. Angulo, Rosemary Gereda y Juan Ramon Seyffert during a ...

1952 Ramiro Gereda-Aleman - El Paso, Texas

Ramiro Gereda Asturias presenting credentials as ambassador to ...

Lucy Alvarez w/ Pat Nixon & Richard Nixon, Mexico 1954

Lucy Alvarez with Pat and Ridchard Nixon during their visit to ...

Joe Gomez's Parents

Pedro & Norma Gomez Newly weds in Puerto Rico 1947

Golden Hour

The beautiful sunset at White Sands made the place more magical ...

Greetings from El Paso

Visiting our Mom. Decided to stop in and see the Cathedral High ...

Exhibit provided by Polish American Society 2014

Title panel - US in Polish Historiography and Periodicals ...

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

Poland's opinion about American Revolution

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

The Boston Tea Party

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

First 13 Colonies that formed the USA, the Revolutionary War, ...

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

The Battle of Trenton in Polish contemporary Periodicals, 1776

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

France recognizes the United States, 1777-1778; the British ...

Exhibit from Poland, 2014

The Conflict 1764-1769, the press in Poland about The Stamp Act ...

home.search_collection