Article appears in Summer 2024 Ranch Record; written by Julie Mankin
Tom Larson is pictured on Black Diamond from the Knight Stock company at the 75th Annual Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1971. Jerry Gustafson took this photo. (Tom Larson on Black Diamond, Knight Stock, 75th Annual Frontier Days, Cheyenne, WY 7-24-8-1-71, 1971, PRCA Rodeo Sports News Photographs, DRC, 1998.08.3565.)
A cowboy riding a rank native bronc adorns its license plates, and more than two-thirds of its land area is devoted to grazing livestock. Wyoming has plenty of credibility to back up its claim as “The Cowboy State.” And, like much of today’s cowboy cultural events, Cheyenne Frontier Days (CFD) only exists because of cattle ranching.
Cowboying in Wyoming kicked off during a wild 1880’s cattle boom spurred by demand for beef. The military – which arrived to protect settlers and railroad crews from Native tribes – needed to eat. About the same time, the Civil War had left a huge surplus of Longhorns in Texas.
With Wyoming Territory handily located between Texas and Montana’s gold strikes, plenty of traveling cowboys got a look at its open range with free grass. Next, railroad surveyors decided to route the Union Pacific in 1867 through Cheyenne, not Denver. By the time John Wesley Iliff started his cow camp five miles south of Cheyenne that summer, other would-be ranchers were rubbing their hands together in eager anticipation of the possibilities. Within four years, an estimated 60,000 cattle grazed within 100 miles of town.
Demand for beef was through the roof with England importing 80 percent from the United States. Soon, the federal government began feeding displaced Native Americans. It purchased 11,311 head of cattle from ranchers in 1878 alone. Cattle poured into the Cowboy State from Texas, with stockmen staking out ranches along rivers. They were making a killing.
Representatives from Chicago packing houses crowded the local bars. Territorial governors invested in livestock. And the drinks flowed at the opulent Cheyenne Club, built by cattle money in 1880. Soon, more than 180 livestock companies incorporated in Wyoming, and Cheyenne counted eith millionaires among its 3,000 residents in 1880.
But the bubble would burst. By 1886, there were some 1.5 million cattle on Wyoming’s range with nary a blade to eat, thanks to a wicked drought. That was followed by a brutal winter that killed up to 25 percent of the stock. By November, wholesale cattle prices in Chicago had fallen by half. Cheyenne withered and was literally about to die.
Cheyenne Frontier Days, 1936.
“The thing that really saved this town was actually the cowboy culture,” said Tom Hirsig, who grew up cowboying on a big ranch north of Cheyenne. “Prospects looked bad, and the railroad had quite an investment. One of their agents from Denver knew they needed to get people here, but had about given up hope. He was at the train station one day, watching some cowboys try to load a bronc on a boxcar, and the horse wanted no part of it. The spectacle drew a huge crowd, because they were pretty good cowboys. It dawned on him: This is what people want to see!”
That agent, Frederick Angier, decided Cheyenne was the place to show off cowboy skills that would entertain the public. He wrote to the local newspaperman, and they planned a day in 1897 to exhibit bronc riding, steer roping and driving feats. The festival was so successful they added another day and a parade the following year.
Hirsig had been the CEO of the Western celebration for 10 years now. The man whose great-grandfather and great-great uncle helped organize the first CFD and who actually won the rodeo’s steer roping contest in 2002 feels strongly that without the ranching industry, there would be no Cheyenne Frontier Days.
What It’s Become
Now in its 128th year, CFD is still anchored by the world’s largest outdoor rodeo, which welcomes some 1,600 top cowboys and cowgirls annually who compete for $1.2 million in cash and prizes. It became known long ago as “The Daddy of ’em All” not just for the lucrative prize money, but because Cheyenne’s reputation for great cattlemen and tough cowboys has never faded.
Arapahoe Indians at frontier days, ca. 1925, Photographic Study Collection, DRC, RC2006.017.
The Frontier Park venue boasts grandiose stands surrounding a 1,000-foot-long arena in which cowboys must give a 30-foot head start to the wildest cattle they see all season. Everything about “The Daddy” showcases the toughest cowboy skills. Over the years, performances have included a on-of-a-kind Rookie Bronc Riding, where formerly untried young broncs are matched against upstart cowboys. Plus, the recently added Women’s Ranch Bronc World Finals lures cowgirls from four different countries. Last year’s Frontier Days saw 116, 960 fans go through the turnstiles over the nine rodeo performances, with competition televised live on television.
The Shindig has also never stopped including behind-the-chutes tours, trick riding, and wild-horse races. On the Frontier Park grounds, nearly 47,000 people last year visited the Native American village. They love, too, Old Frontier Town and the Western art show, plus the park’s Old West Museum, which is open seven day s a week. Current exhibits include items and stories depicting ongoing relationships between Native American tribes and CFD.
Downtown Cheyenne pulls its weight, too, hosting four parades featuring more than 60 horse-drawn carriages and wagons, while Kiwanis serve more than 100,000 free flapjacks throughout the week’s breakfasts. The city also offers 90-minute Wild West trolley rides to teach visitors about the favorite haunts of Cheyenne’s historic cattlemen.
A group of cowgirls in 1926. Rose Smith and Ruth Scantlin Roach are among the women pictured. (Cowgirls Cheyenne Frontier Days 1926, Howard Tegland Rodeo Postcards Collection, DRC, 1991.046.156.)
Honoring its ranching roots, CFD gladly anchored the first National Day of the Cowboy 20 years ago. It was passed as a bill in the Wyoming legislature and is celebrated the fourth Saturday of every July (it’s been through 15 other state legislatures as well). Plus, Hirsig and company designated 2024 as CFD’s Year of the Cowgirl.
In June, they unveiled a new bronze statue called “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls” and erected it to be seen from I-25 near an existing bronze honoring native bronc stomper and singer Chris LeDoux. The Year of the Cowgirl was the brainchild of Susan Samuelson of the expansive Warren Livestock Ranch near Cheyenne. She’d mentioned to Hirsig that cowboys weren’t the only handy types to help settle the West.
He knew his own ranching mother and sisters deserved honor. So, in 2024, the winners of the three women’s events at the CFD rodeo also took home versions of the statue that its sculptor estimates are worth $20,000 each.
Staying True
Cheyenne Frontier Days may have begun to boost a flailing industry, but today cattle ranching in the area is booming. The industry directly contributed more than $1 billion to Wyoming’s economy in 2021, according to UW’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. That’s part of the reason the group at Frontier Days is still doing what it can to promote the importance of Western culture and to reveal Cheyenne as one of the thousands of rural economies anchored by ranching families.
“Ranching just continues to sustain Frontier Days,” said Hirsig, “We had someone called an ‘Imagineer’ from Disney come out a few years back to help us with a master land-use plan. Implementation would require financial partners, who would want to know where the business will be in 25 years. That’s when the Disney representative asked us ‘What’s the core of rodeo?’ And I thought back to Angier’s first conception of Frontier Days – the interaction between humans and animals.
“Working with animals for a common cause, whether it’s doctoring a yearling or breaking a horse to ride on the ranch,” Hirsig continued. “That’s what people want to see. We realized the key is that we have to keep that core – those Western traditions that stared on cattle outfits. There is no truer form of interaction between humans and animals than ranching. In fact, that’s what rodeo reflects.”
Angier, the man who first envisioned the Western festival, would no doubt be proud that, five generations later, his brainchild is still wildly successful – including being named one of the top festivals in the country by Livability.com.
“There is a bit of personal satisfaction for me in seeing the wonderful Frontier show of today,” he wrote upon being invited back to CFD in 1917. “It calls to mind the prophecy of my Denver friends, who had said the frontier would die a natural death in three or four years. There has been quite a bit of pleasure in meeting those still in Denver and reminding them of their guess.”
