. announcer: this weekend, american history tv is joining our spectrum cable partners to showcase the history of sheridan, wyoming. to watch more video on the current tour visit c-span.org/citiestour. we continue now with the history sheridan. [applause] >> there's no place better to be the second week of july than sheridan, wyoming. we put on a world-class event and we invite you to sheridan. ♪ >> o say can you see by the

dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ >> i tell you what. this week is the biggest week in sheridan, economically and entertainment-wise. we feel good about that, because 89 years ago, sheridan was dead as a doornail. there was absolutely nothing going on. some citizens decided we needed to have a rodeo to provide some economic opportunity and entertainment. that was their charter, and it still is. so here we are 89 years later, we are still doing the same thing. we hope the founding fathers would be proud of that. 1928 and 1929, a wealthy financier family naked j.p. -- named j.p. morgan bought the ranch outside of town. for two years, they had a big rodeo out in the field. it was such a big deal. i think there were cars from 23 states.

this was in 1928. people in sheridan said, if they can do it, why can't we do it here? a group of concerned citizens got together and formed a committee. they decided we will have a rodeo. they didn't start out on a small scale. they wanted to have a big, professional rodeo from the get-go. they put it all together. 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 somewhere in some ranch, they had some contests on bucking horses. >> we are one of the top 30 rodeos in america, and that is determined by the amount of prize money you have. our rodeo competitors come from all over the united states.

it was interesting. we had people from louisiana, michigan, wisconsin. 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. we will get delaware this year, i'm just pretty sure. we had people from all over the u.s. here, 49 of 50. our rodeo stock come from a rodeo in montana, and they subcontract some of the other stock, too. they have been with our rodeo for about 23 years. some of the best in the business. -- very best in the business. >> our job, we provide all the livestock for rodeos across the country. that includes anything from the cattle, to the bucking horses, to the bull. we have 64 horses we brought.

we leased 15 horses out of canada. for the tie-down roping, we have 100 head of animals, for the steer wrestling and team roping, we have 100 head of those animals, as well. >> the animals that are involved in the rodeo, that is what they are born to do. these are not animals that are trained to do that, it is what they are born to do. and if you think about it, they spend most of the lives in a pasture, eating hay. they actually work eight seconds a day, 20 times a year. and that's their job. very truthfully, the prca and us, we put animal welfare first and foremost. we really believe in the welfare of the animals and we take the best care of them that we can. >> these guys are bred to be animal athletes. it is not like a dairy cow, a beef animal. they are bred totally different. they are bred to be an athlete, no different from horses.

-- than the horses. they are bred to be athletes. it is a totally different deal. their nutrition is totally different. their care is totally different. always tell people, if you go on a really good bucking bull, it is like winning the bovine lottery. you get fed the best, cared for the best, everything from acupuncture to electric post therapy, whatever they need, we will give them, and nutrition-wise, it is what they are bred to do. they're going to do their career and not want for anything. at the end of it, they raise some cows and maybe die of old age underneath a tree out in the pasture. >> one thing different about the sheridan rodeo is we like to keep a smalltime feel to it. we don't want it to become some big economic thing. we want it to be a community event. we don't want to get too big for our britches, if you know what i mean.

another thing that makes us unique is our world championship indian relay races. which we started here in 1997. it has become a premier event of the rodeo. premier even-- premiere event of the rodeo. it is not a prca event. we start off the rodeo with it. you would be able to see just how exciting it is. and it brings a lot of people here that may not be that interested in the rest of the rodeo events. they come to see the indian relay. so, we have a great partnership with the indian relay team. we've had indian relationships since the very first rodeo. they decided in 1931 that they wanted to have the indians. they just did. in those days, the indians would walk down from the cheyenne reservation to be part of the show.

in those days -- this was before television, before anything else -- they would have huge night shows, things called cowboy days and indian nights, where they staged these big pageants. with campfires and bonfires, because they didn't have lights necessarily then. it's always been an integral part of it. that has ebbed and flowed over the years. in the last 20 years, we've really brought it back. with the indian relay races, it has become a thing of beauty. >> it is the first event. everybody wants to get in their seats early and find a great spot to watch. if you have never seen indian relay racing, it is pretty spectacular. and i think that is the event that most of the people talk about at our rodeo. >> there have been many challenges. you know? shortly after the first rodeo, in 1931, not many more years later, it became financially

challenged. making it go. making a profit so we can carry on the next year. that has been a continuous problem throughout the years. they did not have the rodeo for two years during the war, 1942 and 1943. then in 1944, they started up again, but in a modest manner. because it was not professional like it was before. so the 50's were indulgence for the rodeo. it got to the point in 1951 when the rodeo said to the community, ok, do you folks want to have a rodeo or not? so they took a poll. they said yes, we want to have a rodeo, so we were alive again and had more of a community support. over the decades, community support from sponsors and businessmen and some of the public has ebbed and flowed. since the 1990's, it has flowed.

>> well, typically, we end up around 22,000 over a four-day event. our facility seats about 6,000. we will be sold out for sure on friday and saturday. wednesday and thursday are down a little, but we're hoping to have between 20,000 and 22,000 during the course of the week. that is actually attending the rodeo. not to mention the other events that go on in town, how many people will attend those. >> we are pretty sure the sheridan rodeo brings about $5 million to the community in one way or another. motels, hotels, restaurants, bars, businesses. the economic impact is pretty good. the dollars get turned over several times. it is the biggest economic event in sheridan, wyoming. that's for sure. >> it was started by citizens. it has been carried on by citizens. there were a lot of trials and tribulations, but it held true

to the tradition of the west and our western culture. it has become an integral part of the community, and nobody can imagine sheridan, wyoming without the sheridan rodeo. it is unthinkable. in 150 years, they will be saying the same thing, that is totally fine. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to sheridan, wyoming to learn about its rich history. to watch more video from sheridan and other stops, visit c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span three. -- on c-span3. announcer: saturday, at 10:00 eastern on 4:00 p.m. american history tv, here's a quick look at one of our recent programs on real america. america.

♪ >> many people think of us as washington correspondents, but in reality we are u.s. correspondents. during the campaign, i traveled a great deal between washington and various spots in the country , because you must be out there if anything happens. i compare this to the stops before. you had people lined up on section 48. years.ring the later i know many top-notch correspondents.

we have worked many stories together, so we know each other very well. some of us are conservatives, some are liberal, some are in the middle, but we have deep respect for each other and each other's ideas. candidates didn't seem to have to take one. and applause] [helicopter whirring] >> when you go out with the president or the challenger, of the opposing party, you are really trying to verify the impact of unreal people.

drop the press, not the way he looks on television. -- not the press, not the way he looks on television. something else is visible that is not ordinarily associated with the man, because you see what the man is like in different circumstances. then, you see what the reaction of real people is. [cheers and applause] ♪ >> the presidential campaign was to keep up, you had with the group in the group took you everywhere. by air, trying, even by boat. i went down to mississippi in a riverboat with president ford. perhaps the biggest freedom we had was foreign correspondents -- with foreign correspondents was freedom of movement. we could go anywhere you would want.

♪ get a strong feeling of a country by meeting people in different states. on this campaign trip, i saw posters protesting of -- protesting against the bill in congress. had the bill passed, these people would have lost their jobs, so they had an interest in getting a compromise with a bill which would have maintained a certain measure of private inspections that preserved the jobs and louisiana.

-- in louisiana. announcer: you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly america saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv. announcer: this november is the 275th anniversary of abigail adams' birth. next on the presidency, her biographer talks about the social and political relationship tween adams and her friend, poet and historian mercy otis warren. they were two of the most significant women in revolutionary war america. when they met, warren was a adams, buthe younger it was abigail that ended up in the white house with her