Where does "mule skinner" stand fer?

I've been wanderin, where the term "mule skinner" comes from for about a year now and still don't know.  Theres a muleskinner.com site, you here it every once and a while on a old western, and of course we have our own muleskinner here.

So what gives, what's it mean, and where does it come from?

Spot 

Muleskiner was the driver or teamster of freight wagons or? pulled by mules. The swamper was the helper, and sometimes rode on the lead left mule, and sometimes was the brakeman. On the 6 up hitch you had the lead team the swing and then the wheelers. Right before the turn of the century there were actually more mules in the US than horse. The horses and oxen couldn't hack the long dry runs across the great basin, and sometimes the prarie. The number of mules died off because the wild horse bred naturally and the mules had to be bred. In addition the need for teams for field work and freight business died off with the coming of the tractor and locmotive.

It is a term used to describe the job of one of the kitchen crew in a Chinese resturaunt. max

 

And you all thought he was a quide. humph!

Muleskinners brought all the goods into the rockies an' alaska fer years, not jus' by wagon, but with pack trains too.  The army used pack trains where wagons couldn't go.  Any expedition into the wilderness had a lead muleskinner, called the pack master, a guide, and various camp jacks that were also part time skinners. 

The others came to Colorado and became Outfitters.

Down at Ft Carson, which is about 10 mile south of Colorado Springs, they had the last mule from the old pack strings. He was over 50 yrs old ( I think 56 ) when he finally died. They have a picnic area  down around the old stables at Turkey Creek. The old mule just wandered around, but learned to beg for beer. If he would see anybody witha dixie cup , he would pester them until they gave it to him. He could grip it between his bottom lip and teeth, up turn it, and chug-a-lug the cup in one gulp.

I worked with a fellow down in NM that was in WWII and was a mule skinner. He was a cook, and since they weren't busy all the time, he also was assigned to the packers. They would give him a green untrained, essentially wild mule and he was suppose to get it trained and use it. He had alot of great hair raising stories.

The sad part about all the mules in the Burma campaign is that they couldn't bring any of them back and most were shot. ( same as the dogs in the canine units during Vietnam)The rest became the property of the locals where they were worked to death in short order.

The term "shave tail" in the military came from the custom of clipping the mules tail down real short, as they do new recriuts. As the mule was trained, they would clip the tail into bell formations. If one had three bells and they were trained to ride, pack and work in harness.

Funny thing here, they shaved Demi Moore's head for GI-Jane, but I never saw Rambo's head shaved.

And all this you may copy and write down in your book of "so what who cares".

That's why I prefer horses to mules.  Them drunk mules will sing all night long.  And it ain't purdy.  You just cain't get no sleep.