The Early Years (1700s – 1890s)

The beginnings of rodeo can be traced back to the ranchos of the early 1700s, when the Spanish ruled the West. The Spanish cattlemen, known as vaqueros, would influence the American cowboy with their clothing, language, traditions and equipment which would in turn influence the modern sport of rodeo. Duties included roping, horse breaking, riding, herding, branding, and much more. These activities remain the same today on modern ranches albeit with modern methods and equipment.  These ranch chores would evolve directly into the rodeo events of tie-down roping, team roping, and bronc riding with the other events expanding on the ideas of these early events.

In the days of the ranchos, the annual roundup and branding of cattle was always an occasion for a display of horsemanship and roping. When the principal chores of the event called a rodeo, pronounced "ro-day-oh" (from the Spanish word rodear meaning "to surround") were completed, there was usually an exhibition and contest of skills by the cowboys, or "vaqueros."

The skills displayed had a rich history tracing back to the great horsemanship traditions of the Spanish conquistadores. During the late 1700s and early 1800s, Spain held much of the land that is now the American West. When the missions were established, their secular activities included raising cows for America's flourishing cattle market. The need grew for skilled horsemen to handle and manage the herds.

Many of the padres who ran the missions were sons of Spanish nobility. They were trained in the celebrated skills of horsemanship and roping practiced in Spain for centuries. They passed on these skills to their workers, who became known as vaqueros. When mission lands were converted to privately owned ranchos during Mexico's rule, the vaqueros found work running cattle and managing the rangelands.

After America took these lands from Mexico in 1848, the vaqueros continued to work the big ranchos alongside their American counterparts bringing with them their expertise and traditions.

The early 1800s saw the westward expansion of Americas border with Manifest Destiny as the prevalent government policy. Americans from the East came into contact with Spanish, Mexican, Californio, and Texican cowboys and began to copy and adapt their styles and traditions of working the ranches.

Eventually the American cattle barons would begin to rival their earlier counterparts in new states like Texas, California, and the New Mexico Territories. Cattle from the West fed the massive population in the Eastern United States, and the cattle business boomed, especially after the Civil War, when cattle herds spread out throughout the West, that the ranks of the American cowboy grew. They worked for cattle barons driving cattle to the bustling stockyards of fast-growing towns.

Ranchers from the Southwest would organize long cattle drives, to bring cattle to the stockyards in towns like Kansas City, where trains would carry the cattle east. This was the golden age of the cowhand, who made their living on the many ranches and cattle trails such as the Chisum, Goodnight-Loving, and the Santa-Fe.

At the end of the long trails, these new American “Cowboys” would often hold informal competitions among themselves and the various different outfits to see which group had the best riders, ropers and all-around best drovers. These kinds of informal cowboy gatherings became more common over the years until the contests became more formal entertainment events, and from these competitions modern rodeo would eventually be born. The first recorded rodeo took place in Deer Trail, Colorado, in 1864, when two groups of cowboys met to show each other up at their everyday ranching tasks.

Barbed Wire and the Wild West Show

All too soon, toward the end of the century this open range era would come to an end with the expansion of the railroads and the introduction of barbed wire. There was no longer a need for long cattle drives, and range lands were being divided amongst the increasing population of homesteaders and settlers.  Along with the decline of the open West, demand for the cowboy’s labor began to dwindle. Many cowboys (and Native Americans as well) had to seek a new way of life and began to take jobs with a new American phenomenon, the Wild West Show.

There had always been informal competitions around the stockyards, where cowboys, fueled by wages and whiskey, would challenge each other to see who was the best at cutting a cow or roping. Spectators gathered around to watch the action. In small towns throughout the west, stock horse shows (sometimes called rodeos), where cowboys could supplement their shrinking income, began to spring up on a regular basis. Entrepreneurs like the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody began to organize these Wild West Shows. America's fascination with the "Wild West" was turned into a business. The shows were partly theater, and partly competition, with the objective of making money, glamorizing and preserving the disappearing American frontier. Other shows like the 101 Ranch Wild West Show and Pawnee Bill’s Wild West show also competed to present their version of the ‘Wild West’ to captive audiences. Much of the pageantry and showmanship of modern rodeo comes directly from these Wild West shows. Today rodeo competitors still call rodeos "shows" and they participate in "performances."

At the same time, other cowboys were supplementing their income at their usual informal competitions, which were now being held in front of paying spectators. Small towns across the frontier would hold annual stock horse shows, known as 'rodeos', or ‘gatherings’. Cowboys would often travel to these gatherings and put on what would be known then as ‘Cowboy Competitions’.

Of these two types of shows only the cowboy competitions would survive. Eventually Wild West Shows began to die out due to high costs of mounting them and many producers begin strictly producing the less expensive cowboy competitions at local rodeos, or stock horse shows. The joining of competition with the gatherings would be the spark for what we now see as Rodeo, originally two different aspects of western life joined to become a unique sport.

Spectators would now pay to see the competitions and cowboys would pay to compete, with their money going into the prize pool. Many towns began to organize and promote their local rodeo, just as they do today. In frontier towns all over the west (like Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Prescott, Arizona) the rodeo became the most anticipated event of the year.

The Early Organizations (1890s - 1950s)

With the disappearing lifestyle of the western frontier, the popularity of rodeo grew, and rodeos began to spread all across the country. Cowboys who had been facing grim prospects could now travel and make a living by rodeo alone.  This was the birth of the professional rodeo competitor. New and organized rules were needed to protect the safety of the cowboys and animals, and to standardize the events.

Many of the major rodeo committees from larger rodeos came together in 1929 to cement uniform rules of competition for the emerging sport of rodeo. The new organization was dubbed the Rodeo Association of America (RAA). It now became possible to document and determine champions in each event. Yet even with this new organization there were still problems. Promoters often took advantage of the cowboys, judging was far from fair, and prize money often turned out less than agreed upon.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys' Association

Those that made their living at rodeo events saw a need to standardize the events, establish rules and regulations for the safety of competitors and animals and to protect their rights.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys' Association (PRCA), traces its roots back to 1936 when a group of cowboys staged a walkout at a rodeo at the Boston Garden. The protest resulted from the rodeo promoter's refusal to add the cowboys' entry fees to the prize money. The cowboys vowed to boycott until the entry fees were added to the prize money and judging was done with greater objectivity.

The promoter, W. T. Johnson, finally relented and with their demands met and a new found sense of worth, the cowboys formed the Cowboy Turtles Association. They called themselves “turtles” because, as the story goes, they were slow to organize but finally stuck their necks out. The Cowboy Turtles changed their name in 1945 to the Rodeo Cowboys Association and the modern sport of rodeo was born. Many early cowboys such as Fritz Truan, were also boxers, which is how the rodeo buckle became the preferred trophy of rodeo events.

In the modern era, rodeo has continued to grow from its roots as a working ranch competition to a huge national sport. With the continued success, rodeo has seen growth in the number of associations at regional and state levels.  Rodeo has also established itself at the high school and college level. There is even an association for younger children known as the National Little Britches Rodeo Association.

In 1975 the Rodeo Cowboys Association became the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association or PRCA, the largest sanctioning body of rodeo in the United States and Canada. The National Finals Rodeo originally held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and now in Las Vegas, Nevada is the culmination of the PRCA’s rodeo year. The business of rodeo is now as legitimate as any other national sport, and the PRCA has achieved a status on par with the NFL or NBA. Rodeo not only offers a chance to compete, it also offers a way of life with historical roots that other sports cannot.

With more than 170,000 fans attending the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas and more than 13 million viewers tuning into the finals on ESPN, rodeo is more popular and competitive than ever.  The standardized events that now characterize rodeo are bareback riding, steer wrestling, team roping, saddle bronc riding, calf roping and bull riding. Many rodeos also include barrel racing, a sport that is dominated by female equestrians.

Rodeo has become a sport distinctly different from its stock horse roots. Today's stock horse shows revolve around the disciplines of reining, reined cow horse and cutting, and usually include amateur riders as well as professional trainers.

Rodeo occupies a unique position in modern sports, having developed from an American culture that is rapidly changing. Rodeo is a window into the past while at the same time offers a unique and fully modern sport with an exciting and interesting atmosphere.

Resources

A tip of the hat to the Vaqueros

Introduction to Rodeo

Women's Rodeo History

. . . and they called it RODEO

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum