you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation like us on facebook at c-spanhistory. the c-span cities tour travels the country exploring the american story since 2011. we've been to more than 200 communities across the nation like many americans our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. next a look at one of our city's tour visits. all right 1 2 3 national finals bucket horse for the sackey throw rodeo, please. there's no place better to be the second week in july then sheridan wyo.

life what so proud? ly by the twilight lastly i'll tell you what this week is the biggest week in. sheridan economically and entertainment wise and we feel good about that because 89 years ago. sheridan was dead as a doornail. there was absolutely nothing going on. so some citizens decided we needed 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. we're still in doing the same thing and we hope to founding fathers would be proud of that. in 1928-29 a wealthy financier family named jp morgan.

they bought the historic pk ranch out west of town. and for two years they had a big rodeo out in the fields. it was such a big deal. i mean, i think there were cars from 23 states. this is a 1928 came to it. so this people have shared and said well if they can do it, why can't we do it here? so super concerned citizens got together and formed a committee. and they decided we're going to have a rodeo. they didn't just start out on a small scale. they they wanted to have a big rodeo from the get-go. and they put it all together and in 1931. they had their first professional rodeo in sheridan wyo, rodeo is you know, it's eight events different stock events from bucking horses livestock roping steer wrestling. it's kind of the old cowboy skills brought to the modern day area, but you know it all started out obviously some ranch somewhere. they had a contest with some bucking horses. we are a prca tour rodeo, which

means we're one of the top 30 rodeos in america and that's determined by the amount of prize money that you had for your events. our rodeo competitors come from all over the united states. we had it was interesting we had people from louisiana, michigan wisconsin enter today, obviously a lot of the rodeo contestants are from texas, oklahoma, wyoming certainly has a lot of rodeo contestants. last year though 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 then we're gonna get delaware this year. i'm 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 joliet montana and they subcontract some of the other stock out too, but they've been a long time. i think they've been with our rodeo for about 23 years some of the very best in the business in our job as from sankey rodeo is we provide all the livestock for

rodeos across the country that includes everything from the time event cattle to the buck and horses to the bowl. we've got 64 horses of ours that we brought we least 15 horses from northcott moxa rodeo out of canada. for the tie-down roping, we have 100 head of animals for the steer wrestling and team roping we have under head of each of those animals as well the animals that are involved in the rodeo particularly the animals in the rough stock events, that's what they're born to do and they're born to they're these aren't these aren't animals that are trained to do that. it's what they're born to do and if you think about it, they spend most of their life in a pasture eating. hay and they and they actually work eight seconds a day 20 times a year and that's their job and very truthfully the prca and us particularly we put animal welfare first and foremost and we 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. it's not like a dairy cow. it's not like a beef animal. they're bred totally different. they're bred to be an athlete no different than the horses. they're bred to be athletes. it's a totally different deal. so they're nutrition is totally different their care is totally different. i always tell people like if you're born a really good bucking bull, it's like winning the bovine. because you get fed the best cared for the best. i mean from acupuncture to pulse electromagnetic therapy to whatever it is that they need will give them and that their nutrition wise is is specifically for what they're bred to do. they're gonna do their career and like i said, not one for anything at the end of it they retired they get turned out to maybe breed some cows and then they're gonna die of old age underneath the tree out the pasture. one thing different about the sheridan wyo, rodeo is and we like to keep us small time feel to it. we don't want it to become sick

some big diseconomic thing. we want it to be a community event that we wanted to be. we don't want to get too big for our britches if you know what i mean, that's gonna make way out here. but another thing that makes us unique is our world championship indian relay races. you started here in 1997. this become a premier event of the rodeo. it's not a prca event. this is purely a shared wire rodeo event. we'll start off the rodeo with it and you'll 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 and they come to see the indian relay race. so we have a great partnership with indian relay team and indians in general for make this a good deal because we've had indian relationships is very interested.

they decided in 1931 that they wanted to have the indians, you know, they just did and in those days the indians would walk down from the cheyenne reservation and the crow reservation to be part of this. show and in those days as before television before anything else, they'd have huge night shows that things call like cowboy days in indian. action stage these big pageants, you know with campfires and bonfires because they didn't have lights necessarily then so they've always been an integral part of it been that said been flowed over the years and in the last 20 years. we've really brought it back. it's always been there but with the indian relay races, it's it's become a theme of beauty. it's the first event everybody wants to get in their seats early find a great spot to watch because if you've never seen indian relay racing, it's pretty spectacular and i think that's really the event that the most of the people talk about at our rodeo. and the field there have been

many challenges, you know, like shortly after the first. rodeo in 1931 one morning a couple years later that began they became financially challenged right make make it a go make it a profit so he can carry on in next year. so, you know that that's been a continuous problem throughout the years. they didn't have the rodeo for two years during the war in 1942. 43 and then in 1944 they started up again but in a kind of modest manner because it wasn't professional like it was before so the 50s were kind of the doldrums for the sheridan wyo rodeo and it got to the point in 1951 when the rodeo said to the community. okay. do you folks want to have a rodeo or not? so they had they took a poll and said yes, we want to have a rodeo so we were alive again and to get more community support. so it's one of the things over the decades community support from sponsors and businessmen and quite frankly some of the

public because ebbed and flowed that's in the last season since the 1990s is flowed. well, typically we end up around 22,000 over our four-day event our facility seats about 6,000. we'll be sold out for sure on friday and saturday wednesday and thursday are down a little but we're hoping that between 20 and 2000 here during the course of the week and and you know, that's actually attending the rodeo not to mention all the other events that go on in town. how many people will attend those as well? we're pretty sure that shared wire wrote here brings over five million dollars into the community and one way or another, you know motels hotels restaurants bars businesses. so, you know, the economic impact is really pretty good. of course, there's dollars they get turned over several times. so it's it's the biggest economic event in shared wyoming. that's for sure. you know, it started by

citizens, you know, it's been carried on by citizens had a lot of trials and tribulations, but it kind of held true to the tradition of the west and our western culture and you know, it's become and is an integral part of the community and nobody can imagine shared why only without shared way or rodeo in july? it's just unthinkable and hopefully may not think well in 150 years that be saying the same thing that's what we'd like. you can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country at c-span.org cities tour. this is american history tv only on c-span 3. next virginia lee dornhagen recounts her time as a us army nurse during the vietnam war. she describes injuries. she treated the night the hospital came under fire and the effect the job had on her life. this interview is from the veterans history project and was

conducted by the atlanta history center's kenan research center. and an hour 30 minutes on the presidency harry s truman presidential library and museum director kurt graham talks with the national archives foundation's patrick madden about the new exhibits visitors can expect to find when they eventually return to the museum. and in two hours 30 minutes lyndon johnson, robb and lucy baines johnson the daughters of lyndon and lady bird johnson share their white house memories with moderator and journalist susan page. i was born and raised in a small town called gettysburg, pennsylvania, very historic place very small town. my whole family was there aunt's uncle's grandparents. so it was really easy to have a family relationship. it was my mom and dad and three girls. i was the middle of the three girls. my dad was in world war ii he was in the army corps of engineers served in