[1] He was born on January 11, 1876, to Martin Van Buren Abernathy and Kittie Williams in Bosque County, Texas.

In 1887 at age 11 he worked as a cowboy for the A-K-X Ranch and helped drive a large herd of cattle 500 miles to market at Englewood, Kansas.

[3] His traveling show caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who invited Abernathy to go on a wolf hunt with him and some of his colleagues on a ranch in Oklahoma.

Marshal in 1910 and moved his family to Wichita Falls, Texas, during the oil boom to become a wildcatter.

[7] Louis and Temple Abernathy took their first adventurous ride on horseback from Oklahoma to Sante Fe New Mexico and back, alone and at the ages of 9 and 5.