LOOKING BACK

Rodeo Wars

This first contemporary rodeo took place on July 4, 1888 in Prescott. Planned by a committee of prominent businessmen, the inaugural rodeo featured bronco riding, steer roping and cow pony racing. A cowboy named Juan Levias walked away with top honors.
On its centennial year in 1988, the Prescott rodeo earned bragging rights, along with the trademark moniker “World’s Oldest Rodeo,” by proving that their event, though predated by two others, met formalized criteria their rivals lacked.

However, Prescott doesn’t enjoy its title unchallenged. Payson still claims their first rodeo (1884) preceded that of Prescott. They feature the same tagline adding the qualifier “continuous” — mutinously small at first — before “Rodeo,” which seems to allude that the Prescott rodeo was discontinued for some period.

Not so, according Prescott’s meticulous documentation. Newspaper write-ups see the rodeo through wars and a depression. During the height of the latter in 1933, Andy Devine, Will Rogers and Jimmy Swinnerton were all noted to be in attendance.

Prescott’s second challenger, the West of Pecos Rodeo in Pecos, Texas — whose 1883 event supersedes them both — was admittedly sporadic in early years. Of course, this fact doesn’t bring them any closer to conceding their own claim of hosting the “World’s First Rodeo.”