The first meeting of the National Live Stock Association, in 1898, began sedately enough with the election of officers and a lecture on “The American Hog: Now Bred for Meat Rather than Grease.” To show their gratitude to the city, organizers invited Denverites to attend a barbecue, and that’s when things became exciting.
A mob broke down the gates and elbowed the delegates aside. Despite the presence of the state militia and waiters chucking chunks of meat and bread at them, the crowd, led by “hobos and hoodlums,” as one reporter called them, “gorged themselves on beer … men on their bellies were draining the dregs from the beer barrels.” One man was killed, a woman clubbed and Denver’s name besmirched.
The next year, things were little better. Delegates “worshiped Bacchus” with booze and dancing girls on the tables, a newspaper noted.
It was no surprise, then, that when the Western Stock Show Association formed a few years later and held its first National Western Stock Show, the emphasis was on education and breeding – animal breeding, that is. The shows may not have been as lively as their predecessors, but the organization was more long lived – 100 years, in fact. From the beginning, it has been dedicated to what “Riding High” author Thomas J. Noel calls “unabashed bovine boosterism.”
Noel & Co. have compiled this comprehensive, well-illustrated history to celebrate a century of the National Western. It’s also a story of the Western livestock industry, with occasional forays into side issues, such as clowns, whose occupation is the most dangerous in rodeoing, and the drinking habits of cowboys.
The book is an important addition to Colorado history, since the stock show is as much a part of Denver as the mountains, and to underscore that, the city keeps the Civic Center Christmas display lit up well into January, just for Stock Show visitors.
From the beginning, the National Western was more than just a stock show. For a time, the event had a Baby Health Contest to emphasize the importance of nutrition and breeding. The contest ended when mothers feared for the health of their offspring, who were displayed naked at the January event, and others complained that babies were being judged like piglets.
Society Night began in 1908 and continued for years, so that Denver’s social leaders could don their fur coats and feathered hats and be written up in the newspaper, just like the prize-winning hogs. Special events were dreamed up to fit the times – World War II fundraisers for the Red Cross, for instance.
The rodeo was not always part of the show. After the Humane Society protested a 1910 bulldogging contest in which a cowboy wrestled with a steer for 15 minutes, the National Western discontinued the rodeo, although not everybody was concerned about the animals. One newspaper sniffed that the Humane Society ought to turn its attention away from dumb animals and look after little children.
The rodeo was re-established in 1931, without the 15-minute steer battles, and is more popular with the general public than the livestock exhibitions. In fact, rodeo stars these days attract more groupies than football players. America’s first rodeo, Noel notes, was held in Deer Trail, and today the sport is so prominent there are all kinds of rodeos – Hispanic rodeos, for instance, and gay rodeos.
“Riding High” follows the ups and downs of the National Western over the past century, noting that while other cities have discontinued stock shows, Denver’s has successfully weathered economic downturns and changing tastes.
The event hit hard times a generation ago, when the stockyards adjacent to the National Western’s facility, shut down and were sold for land value. (It was not the stockyards but the adjacent rendering plants that caused Denver’s infamous “stockyard smell,” Noel suggests.) There was also a 1972 scandal, when the grand champion steer, Big Mac, turned out to be not a Black Angus but a white Charolais that had been dyed black. And the Brown Palace, which began exhibiting grand champions in its lobby in 1945, protested after an unseemly event involving a bull and presumably a cow and insisted that henceforth, all champions displayed in the hotel had to be steers.
The success of the Stock Show is because of the work of many men who led the organization over the years, and Noel pens odes to many of these cattlemen. That’s to be expected since the National Western helped underwrite the book. But the paeans are not excessive, and these guys do deserve recognition.
“Riding High” is a memorial to livestock industry’s past, but just as important, it assures us, that come what may, the stock show will go on.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist.
Riding High: Colorado Ranchers and 100 Years of the National Western Stock Show
By Thomas J. Noel
Fulcrum, 318 pages, $32
