Early History of the Rodeo
The rodeo is a traditional sport from Mexico that has been adopted in North America. The word is from Spanish and literally means "I surround."
Rodeo often conjures up images of dusty cowboys scrounging up a living in out-of the-way arenas, but in fact, modern professional rodeo is a very different sport. Its long season peaks on the July 4th weekend, but concludes with the world’s richest rodeo, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada in December.
As barrel racing and bull riding clearly show, rodeo did not, as so many historians have insisted, grow out of the daily work of Anglo ranch hands. Another contest that has nothing to do with ranch work is steer wrestling or bulldogging. However, “charros” did have a steer wrestling event. Their very popular contest involved wrestling the steer to the ground by riding up behind it, grabbing its tail, and twisting it to the ground. The event spread throughout the Kingdom of New Spain and was found at fairgrounds, racetracks, fiestas, and festivals in nineteenth century southwestern areas that now comprise the United States. However, unlike the roping, riding, and racing, this charro contest never attracted a following among Anglo cowboys or audiences.
There would probably be no steer wrestling at all in American rodeo were it not for a black cowboy from Texas named Bill Pickett who devised his own unique method of bulldogging steers. He jumped from his horse to a steer’s back, bit its lip, and threw it to the ground by twisting its horns. He performed at local central Texas fairs and rodeos and was discovered by an agent, who signed him on a tour of the West with his brothers. He received sensational national publicity with his bulldogging exhibition at the 1904 Cheyenne Frontier Days. This brought him a contract with the famous 101 Ranch Wild West, where he spent many years performing in the United States and abroad.
Pickett attracted many imitators who appeared a rodeos and Wild West shows, and soon there were enough practitioners for promoters to stage contests. The first woman bulldogger appeared in 1913, when the great champion trick and bronc rider and racer Tillie Baldwin exhibited the feat. However, women's bulldogging contests never materialized. But cowboys did take up the sport with enthusiasm but without the lip-biting, and when rodeo rules were codified, steer wrestling was among the standard contests. As for Bill Pickett, two Halls of Fame recognize him as the sole inventor of bulldogging, the only rodeo event which can be attributed to a single individual.
Rodeo itself evolved after the Texas Revolution and the US-Mexican War when Anglo cowboys learned the skills, attire, vocabulary, and sports of the “vaqueros.” Ranch-versus-ranch contests gradually sprang up, as bronc riding, bull riding, and roping contests appeared at race tracks, fairgrounds, and festivals of all kinds. William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) created the first major rodeo and the first Wild West show in North Platte, Nebraska in 1882. Following this successful endeavor, Cody organized his touring Wild West show, leaving other entrepreneurs to create what became professional rodeo. Rodeos and Wild West shows enjoyed a parallel existence, employing many of the same stars, while capitalizing the continuing allure of the mythic West. Women joined the Wild West and contest rodeo circuits in the 1890s and their participation grew as the activities spread geographically. Rodeo enjoyed enormous popularity in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, as well as in London, Europe, Cuba, South America, and the Far East in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, none of those venues is viable. Despite numerous tours abroad before World War II, rodeo is really significant only in North America. While it does exist in Australia and New Zealand, top athletes from those countries come to America to seek their fortunes. Some Latin American countries have contests called rodeos but these have none of the events found in the North American version.
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