THE ORIGINS OF RODEO

            Dodge City, Kansas is known as the Cowboy Capital of the world.  For several years it was the largest cattle market in the world and the wildest town on the American frontier.  By the mid years of the 1800's most cattle trails led to Dodge, with cowboys bringing in thousands of heads of cattle to be marketed.  Although Dodge City is the Cowboy Capital of the world, was it truly the place where the first rodeo event occurred?

"Where and when" the first rodeo event was held has been the subject of many arguments throughout history.  The sport of rodeo came into being during the 1800's; those early days of the growth of the cattle industry. Tough, skilled herdsmen were needed to work the cattle on the newly forming vast ranches and to herd them along the long, harsh cattle trails. The beginnings of rodeo were fashioned around informal competitions between working cowboys to challenge the skills they used daily in ranch work.  

There were no bonified arenas in those early days.  Unoccupied pastures might serve as grounds for a match of skills between hands from different ranches or between each other, or the main street of a nearby town might be roped off for the big event.  The spectators for these events grew in numbers and were eventually required to pay to see these rough and burly matches between man and beast.  Later, ranch work demonstrations were included at the stock shows put on by the breeder's associations. Horse shows and competitions became a regular and growing event at the annual cattle shows.

Money contests began to be featured, which drew more and more highly skilled horsemen.  The cowboys organized into an association of their own where the sport was gradually transformed into a highly skilled and competitive sport with defined rules and regulations and has led into the world class multi-million dollar championship sporting events of modern day.

The Old West produced cowboys who were rugged, weather-beaten, untamed and free-spirited skilled warriors of the Great Plains and have remained a legendary, romantic, endearing part of the American West. We remember them through the pages of history books and our television heroes like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and the Lone Ranger.  We remember them through cowboy poetry, and the lyrics of western music. The answer to the question of when and where the first rodeo event occurred may never be agreed upon but one thing is for sure:          COWBOYS are forever.