‘Dancing Cowboy’ was killed by train, coroner says; mayor confirms tribute coming for street-corner character who died in June

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – More than two months later, we have positive identification on a June 30 pedestrian fatality involving a train — and the victim, it turns out, was a beloved local character.

Back in early July , 17 News told you about the death of 48-year-old Marques Morrison — the Dancing Cowboy, as he was known — who entertained and uplifted motorists from his usual spot at the northwest corner of California Avenue and Stockdale Highway.

For 15 years, Morrison performed like a perpetual motion machine, making people smile with his exuberant, sign-spinning dance moves, ostensibly in the name of Little Ceasar’s Pizza. Then he disappeared — dead, his family announced, under undisclosed circumstances.

Now we know what happened. What we don’t know is why.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office, Coroners Division, announced on Sept. 1 that it was Morrison who was struck by a Union Pacific train in the pre-dawn hours of June 30. He died on the tracks near the historic Sumner Train Depot and was discovered at 5:52 a.m. The coroner ruled his death an accident.

His older brother, marketing consultant and podcast host Danny Morrison, said Marques had been having some emotional issues, but he wasn’t ready to say his brother took his own life.

“It’s easy to chalk it up as, ‘My brother jumped in front of a train,’” Morrison said. “I’m not there yet. So at this point, my brother’s gone. The family is distraught. We have been broken for weeks. Just broken.”

Danny Morrison said Marques overcame a traumatic brain injury suffered in a car wreck as a 6-year-old, and, in his adult years, homelessness. But for the last 15 to 20 years he’d been doing what he really wanted to do, according to his brother – smiling, waving, dancing, almost nonstop, come heat, cold, wind or rain, sometimes pausing only to help someone get across the street.

Danny Morrison and Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh have been in discussions about a tribute of some kind.

“Looks like it’s going to happen in the month of September for sure, ‘cause it’s been delayed for multiple reasons,” Morrison said. “Shoutout to Mayor Karen Goh as well. She has been in constant contact with me.”

“We think we have something that will work,” Goh confirmed in a text Monday. “I need staff to confirm [on Tuesday]. I spoke again with Danny this weekend. He likes the idea.”

Marques Morrison’s sidewalk pulpit has gone silent – in a metaphoric sense, at least. It still sees 68,000 vehicles per day, but it’ll never be the same.

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