The Texas State Sport: Rodeo

Rodeo comes from the Spanish word, "rodear" which means to encircle or to surround. To the Spanish in New Spain (now Mexico) in the mid-sixteenth century, a rodeo was simply a cattle roundup. It is probably inevitable that a competitive and flashy culmination to these roundups would evolve: it was a chance for cowhands to show off their skills breaking an especially wild bronco or flaunt their flair as a roper. But it wasn't until the mid-eighteen hundreds that these contests got organized into full-fledged celebrations.

Texas would like to take credit for the first rodeo celebration: In the early 1880’s in the West Texas town of Pecos, cowboys would get off work and come into town on the Fourth of July (also known as Cowboy Christmas). They would thunder down Main street roping steers and corraling the critters in the courthouse square. By some historical accounts, this was the birth of rodeo. Even though Coloradoans also claim that distinction, Texans did have something to do with one of the earliest rodeos, this one in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1872. The occasion was the forerunner of the weeklong Frontier Days still held in Cheyenne. As the story goes, a group of Texas cowboys arrived in Cheyenne and decided to celebrate July Fourth with an exhibition of their steer-riding prowess. The event must have been successful, because the next year local cowboys chose to do a little bronco-busting to celebrate Independence Day--down the middle of one of Cheyenne's main streets.

(Bronco-busting a hundred years ago didn't have the advantage of a life-saving buzzer going off after 8 seconds--cowboys rode the bronc until either it or the rider gave out, and sometimes that was as long as twenty minutes.)

Rodeos emerged from the workaday world of the cowboy along with America's growing fascination with the West: in 1882 Buffalo Bill Cody turned the west into lucrative entertainment with his first Wild West show. Cody used the term "rodeo" for these extravaganzas which included roping, riding, bronco-busting, and bull riding (always the thrilling finale). Sometimes as many as a thousand cowboys competed for prizes. By the 1890s rodeos were commonplace all over the cattle-raising regions of the West.

Today's rodeos are glitzy affairs--and seem a far cry from the simple display of a cowboy's working skills. Of course, no self-respecting cowboy would appear on the range in some of the gaudy get-ups they sport in the arena. They have the women to thank for the change in rodeo costuming: in the early years of motion pictures, winning a rodeo championship was almost a sure way for a woman to break into silent films. Often these skilled equestriennes were performers anyway--in their divided skirts and spang led shirts they could wow an audience bulldogging steers, busting broncos, or balancing on two horses as they spun around an arena. Women began wearing colorful leggings and red velvet skirts with lavishly embroidered hems; in later years bright trousers, silk shirts, and dashing neckerchiefs were popular. Cowboys had to capitulate to please their fans--and that's why most of them today look more like performers than like cowboys. Nowadays rodeos are a raucous amalgam of both America's oldest, and newest, icons: the roundup, the Wild West show, and the movies.