Visits at cspan. Org citiestour. All right. One, two, three. The nationals final rodeo. Theres no place better to be the second week in july than sheridan, wyoming. We put on a world class event and we just love to invite you all to come to sheridan. O say can you see y the dawns early light what so proudly we hail by the twilights last gleaming i tell you what, this week is the biggest week in sheridan. Economically and entertainmentwise. Its good because 89 years ago, sheridan was dead as a doer nail. There was nothing going on. So door nail. There was nothing going on. So some citizens decided, we need to have a rodeo to provide some Economic Opportunity and entertainment and that was their charter and it still is. So here we are 89 years later. Were still doing the same thing and we hope the Founding Fathers will be proud of that. In 1928 and 1929, a financier family named j. P. Morgue be, they bought the historic morgan, they bought the historic p. K. Ranch outside of town. For years they had a big rodeo out in the fields. It was such a big deal. I think there were cars in 23 states. This is in 128. Came to. The people of sheridan said, if they can do it, why cant we do it here . So a group of concerned citizens got together and formed a committee and they decided, were going to have a rodeo. They didnt just start out on a small scale. They wanted to have a big professional rodeo from the getgo. And they put it all together in 19 and in 1931 they had their first professional rodeo in sheridan, wyoming. And here we are today. A rodeo is eight events, different stock events, from bucking horses, livestock roping, steer wrestling. Kind of the old cowboy skills brought to the modern day era. It all started out, obviously some ranch somewhere, they had a contest am so of some bucking horses. Were one of the top 30 rodeos in america and thats determined by the amount of prize money that you add to your event. Our rodeo competitors come from all over the United States. It was interesting. We had people from louisiana, michigan, wisconsin, entered today. Obviously a lot of the rodeo contestants are from texas, oklahoma, wyoming certainly has a lot of rodeo contestants. Last year in terms of our rodeo, we had people registered for our rodeo to watch our rodeo from 49 of the 50 states in america and were going to get delaware this year. Im just pretty sure. But we had people from all over the United States here, 49 of 50. Our rodeo stock, the rough stock that we have come from sankey pro rodeo, which is in montana, and they subcontract some of the other stock out too. But theyve been a longtime i think theyve been with our rodeo for about 23 years, some of the very best in the business. Our job, from sankey rodeo, is we provide all the livestock for rodeos across the country. That includes everything from the cattle to the bucking horses to the bulls. We have 64 horses of ours that we brought, we leased 15 horses from a company out of canada. For the tiedown roping, we 100 head of animals. For the steer wrestling and team roping, wreff 100 head of each of those animals as well. The animals that are involved in the rodeo, particularly the animals in the rough stock events, thats what theyre born to do. And theyre born to these arent animals that are trained to do that. Its what theyre born to do. And if you think about it, they spend most of their life in a pasteur, eating hay and they actually work eight seconds a day, 20 times a year. And thats their job. Very truthfully, the prca and us particularly, we put Animal Welfare first and foremost. And we really believe in the welfare of the animals and we take the very best care of them that we can. These guys are bred to be animal athletes. Its not like a dairy cow, its not like a beef animal. Theyre bred totally different. Theyre bred to be an athlete. No different than the horses. Theyre bred to be athletes. Its a totally different deal. So their nutrition is totally different. Their care is totally different. I always tell people, if youre on a good bucking bull, its like winning the bow vine lottery, because youre cared for the best, from acupuncture to whatever it is that they need, well give them, and their nutritionwise is specifically for what theyre bred to do. Theyre going to do their career and not want for anything. At the end of it, they retire, they get turned out to maybe breed some cows and then theyre going to die of old age underneath a tree out in pasture. One thing different about the sheridan, wyoming, rodeo is we like to keep a smalltime feel to it. We dont want it to it to become some big economic thing. We want it to be a community event. We want it to be we dont want to get too big for our britches, if you know what i mean. Making their way out here is the blue moon [indiscernible] they represent the lakota. Another thing that makes us unique is our indian relay races which we started here in 1997. Its become a premier event of the rodeo. Its not a prca event. Its purely a sheridan, wyoming, rodeo event. To start off the rodeo, youll be able to see how exciting it is. And it brings a lot of people here that might not be that interested in the rest of the rodeo events. They come to see the indian relay race. We have a Great Partnership ith the Indian Relay Team and we have had a great relationship. They decided in 19 1 that they wanted to have the indians. They just did. And in those days, the indians would walk down from the reservation to be part of this show and in those days, there was no television before anything else. They had huge night shows and things called like cowboy days and indian nights and stage these big shows. So they have always been an integral part of it. And it has ebbed and flowed over the years. Its become a thing of beauty. First event and people want to find a debate spot to watch. If you never seen indian relay racing, it is spectacular. That is the event that most of the people talk about at our rodeo. There have been many challenges. Shortly after the first rodeo in became financially challenged, make it a go and make a profit to carry on the next year. That has been a continuous problem. They didnt have the rodeo in 1942 and 194. In 1944, they started up again in a modest manner. So the 1950s was the doldrums and got to the point in 1950 when the rodeo said to the community, do you want to have the rodeo or not. They took a poll and said, we want to have the rodeo. So we were alive again and got more Community Support. Over the decades, Community Support from sponsors and sinessmen and it ebbed and flowed and since the 1990s, this flowed. Typically, we end up around 22,000 around our fourday event. Our facility seats 6,000. We will be sold out on friday and saturday. E are hoping to hoping to have 20,000 to 22,000. And not to mention all the other events that go on in town and how many Events People will attend those. It brings 5 million into the community, motels, hotels, restaurants, bars, businesses. Economic impact is pretty good. And the dollars get turned over several times. Its the biggest economic event in sheridan, wyoming, thats for sure. It has been carried on by citizens and a lot of trials and tribulations and held true to the western culture and it has become an integral part of the community and nobody can imagine sheridan, wyoming without the rodeo. And 50 years [indiscernible] himicht now we are at the sheridan inn. It opened in 1893. Bill connected to buffalo coty. He had his show right here on the porch and it is connected to the history and culture to wyoming as a whole. Buffalo bill is connected to wyoming. He spent a lot of time of different sections auditiononning could yougirls and cowboys. So he would come to sheridan, set up shop and look for authentic performer. The folks that would come were doing from shooting guns on the lawn to using ropes to any of the other crazy stuff that would happen. Orses on the lawn, cowboys and could yougirls and the tribe and you rthern cheyenne so characters. Of it looks much today like it did back when it was first constructed in 1892, the exterior. The white clap board building and inside it has been renovated over the several ownership groups. And completely renovated the rooms. Each one named for a character. The original 1893 i buffalo bill bar which is the most historic ars. Weather is pretty tough and wreaks havoc on places like this so to have a piece like this in the heart of our downtown. We get calls at the Visitor Center who want to come and learn more and want to tour. So its really a building that touches people deeply especially those who are interested in old west history. No state in the union that is 100,000 square miles that has no ocean and no o ocean and major city. We are sing did you lar. The part of depending on a pastoral grazing economy or ranching is that the margins are [indiscernible] the cattle operation will make a , who is going to pay the roads, schools and infrastructure. You cant do it. We cant do it on the pastoral grazing economy. Wyoming was one of the poorer states in the nation. It wasnt like mississippi delta poor, but we had a lot of subsistence living. Cash. Was very it was a duck tape operation and we managed to get along for a long time. We had to beg the financial mercy of others to get basic Services Like our highways. The federal government paid a lot of our highways. The university was always in the lowest of firms because it didnt have an endowment. My favorite story, what happened in 1969, i heard a story that ne day a our treasurer went into the Governors Office and said we have 100 in the general fund. And he said im going to see if this is true. The governor had long retired and actually retired from his law practice and he came down, dressed up in a suit coat and tie and great interview. I said, governor, is it true that your treasurer said we have 100 in the fund. 80. Id no, damn it, it was and now we have a fund that exceeds 8 billion. Mineral mining was a complex story here in oil and gas. It really didnt start to be a there ng until 1920 when was a law passed by Congress Called the mineral leasing act of 1920 and made sure that any oil, gas or coal that was produced on federallyowned land received the back of the states of origin and 1973 when the Arab Oil Embargo opened and then wyoming came in. This state was clawing from people saying this is the Energy Capital of america. Coal, oil, gas, uranium. The Legislature Gets to use the interest from this germ fund, which is now about 400 million per year but hasnt been enough and when the boom of the 1970s collapsed in 1983 and 19 4, that was a tough time to be in wyoming. We had a major excess of people. N the 1990s we had it is a mono culture, when they are good, they are very good. Coal is in a world of hurt. We had pretty significant bankruptcy, two in the last two weeks. And there is a lot of problems with this aside from the fact drastic going to mean a cut. All these coal miners with their Pension Plans and health insurance, minerals pay 45 of the property taxes in the state of wyoming. And there has been trouble, problems with the coal mines like peabody coal coming up with the property taxes they owe. They did it eventually. But thats major. If a coal mine goes bankrupt, camel county, which is the center of it, is really in tough shape. Economic diversity. Who doesnt want diversity. But particularly in wyoming that we have diversity. On the surface, its great. Dont we all want a trust fund . I would like one. The problem is that you can avoid hard questions. You dont have to deal with cutting deficits because you have all this cash and dont have to deal with social changes because there are people who want to keep things the way they are. And its like i described of money around the legislature. It will be difficult for wyoming to move forward. I dont blame people. When you get so much money from oil, gas and coal, we got it made. Its when that goes away, its bad. Commodities have to be the key. And needed to get it finished and thats why he was here to find some quiet time. The reason he ended coming to big horn, his friend bill horn and were ambulance drivers, im not sure how bill horn was invited to come here but he was invited to come to the big horns and they could stop here on their way to jackson because earnest was invited to jackson to finish his ba book there. And they decided to stay. Bill horn stayed for a couple of weeks and then there was so much ing on up there that earnest needed to work somewhere else. And came down to sheridan, no air conditioning, 1928, one bathroom per floor. Im sure it was very loud at the train station and decided to go to another place. And there is a bedroom there that is called the hemming way room and i think he was there by himself and able to write. At the very end when he was close to finishing he went to still wig wam and pauline came to join him. And it was just pauline and they were the guests for seven days. We just found that he tried to finish the last paragraph of the book and rewrote it 29 times and that was a real struggle for him and once it was finished we know they had a type writer. His finishing touches. So he must have finished and then [indiscernible] every day he would get up and type and would go fishing. We know did work but most of it was done at lower fawley. When i was in the wyoming room, i discovered this book and there was a lot of big horn history and im from the historical society. And i look for Something Different and i found this log book, its called the log, fawleys ranch and summer, 1928. An originala diary, photograph and the donley family. They were a publisher from chicago and they would publish these for the guests. Here you have the guest rolls. And on this page i found earnest hemming way. Realized this was an original photo. And it took me a while doing the we arch and that is how found out that this was later to become his life. And this is the book that started it all. The reason i started this book, being a manager of the wyoming room, we were having so many researchers coming in wanting to look at this photo, opening the book and putting it on the copy machine. It was being used quite extensively. It was breaking down the back of the book. They were about 100 years old and we needed to archive it and i took the idea to my board, the Library Board and approved that i put this book together so anything in the wyoming room is available to researchers. Very totally a interesting maze to find everything we have in the wyoming room. We had one patron that was very interested in hemmingway and would come up with questions have you looked in the post Office Records and sure enough, we found an original signature of earnest hemmingway in pencil and i went to other books. It was exciting that because of the patrons showing so much interest, i was able to find this all by myself and i was at ome and there is earnest hemmingway signature that no one else has ever seen. The compiling of the information has been important because people need to see it for themselves. They need to read the handwriting and sometimes they need two or three different references to prove what their thoughts were and so important to our local history. We are at eatons ranch at the foot of the big horn ountains, 30 miles west of sheridan, wyoming. Ranching, some people say it is like a cattle ranch. It is not a cattle ranch. Thats what a rancher will tell you processing grass. Its an agricultural endeavor. Sheridan has been a ranching community. Maybe not to the extent that it used to be but today you will find more enlarged ranches and people came out and homesteded and have small rampts and you have a lot of areas that are consolidated. But it has been important and still is important. Maybe not to the extent that it used to be but a significant part of the cultural life and Economic Life of sheridan, wyoming. Ranching will not go away. Somebody invented a good substitute for hamburger. So the idea is if we get this going and we dont have to kill any more animals. Ranching is here to stay for a while. I came to sheridan through british officers that came to this area. They were horsemen, hunthed and fished and brought their love of horses with them and a sport that started in the far east ended up in the plains of america and flourished here. We are in big horn, wyoming. This is the flying h ranch. Part of the flying h polo club. This is the premiere polo club in the United States out of about 200 clubs. And next to the big horn aquestions try and center. Currently, we have three or four former chairman of the United StatesPolo Association that ended here. We have eight ranchers that moved here in the last eight years that are polo enthusiasts. We have been lucky in this area to have people that have the ability to build a facility like this and bring good horses into this area. And on any day of the week, there may be 600 horses out here in the prime of their life, athleticism, young athletic horses standing here, some of the best blood lines in the world. Fun part about polo is the relationship with horses. The American West is pretty much defined by mans relationship with a horse be it a crow war i man, remember or a cavalry 80 miles north of here, 20 rode to their death against native horsemen. It has a romance to it. And polo is one of the venues that is hard to worry anything about your life when you are playing polo. When lucy was introduced into e rodeo stage, the crowd erupted. She was the first one and defied expectation and rose to the top. We are in the room of the sherd and. The wyoming room is a local arkifeal room. Anything that is historic to Sheridan County or the region itself. In this collection, a bunch of items that pertain the miss. Erica pageant in 195 to it was one mans attempt change Racial Discrimination policies. Miss america was a brain child of Howard Sinclair and was a writer. He grew up near a reservation and when he was a young man he was adopted by a local tribe and adopted their ways. And so he felt that through his experiences, the native people did not reserve fer receive what they deserved. There are things downtown no indian trade