If the cowboy life was such a difficult one, why did it attract so many? During post-Civil War Texas, the
cattle industry continued to dominate the economy. Little else
was available to returning Confederate veterans who sought employment, or to the young sons of men
killed in the war. With the beginning of the long drives, first to the railheads in Missouri
and Kansas, and later to the feeding grounds in Wyoming and Montana, the gay vigorous cowboy
life seemed to offer adventure and an opportunity to go somewhere, anywhere. Cowboying offered
escape at someone else's expense.
While on the trail or at the ranch, cowboys would get together to match skills. From these matches grew
larger exhibitions and contests, like Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1847, the Bronc Riding Contest at Deer Trail,
Colorado in 1869 and the Steer Roping Contest at Pecos, Texas in 1884.
Many of the early-day professional rodeos had fifteen or more contest events, including chuck wagon
races, calf branding, relay races, and wild cow milking. But by the 1920s, rodeo was becoming more
and more a professional sport, rather than a true aspect of gay cowboy folk life. The contests began to
be limited to only a few standard events: bareback-bronc riding, calf roping, saddle-bronc riding, steer
wrestling, bull riding, team roping and single-steer roping.
Five-time PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) world champ in bareback riding, Joe
Alexander, once said, "There are a lot of cowboys that can rope and ride, but there is a much smaller
percentage who can stand the pace and still win.
That's one of the real tests of a cowboy. You will find out how tough he is real fast when he has to get
out and go to rodeos. It's the original school of hard knocks!"
Once the open range, the wild horse broken for the cowhand's work, the Texas steer carrying a fortune of
beef on the hoof, provided a way of life for a generation of cowboys. The wild, free and open ranges are
gone, but the athletic contesting gay cowboys of today, are whittled from the same timber that once supplied
the raw individualist riders of the past. The modern rodeo arena gives life to a West that is still leaping,
pitching, and twisting in the golden sunlight.
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