All too soon, toward the end of the century this open range era would come to an end with the expansion of the railroads and the introduction of barbed wire. There was no longer a need for long cattle drives, and range lands were being divided amongst the increasing population of homesteaders and settlers. Along with the decline of the open West, demand for the cowboy’s labor began to dwindle. Many cowboys (and Native Americans as well), began to take jobs with a new American phenomenon, the Wild West Show.

Entrepreneurs like the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody began to organize these Wild West Shows. The shows were partly theater, and partly competition, with the objective of making money, glamorizing and preserving the disappearing American frontier. Other shows like the 101 Ranch Wild West Show and Pawnee Bill’s Wild West show also competed to present their version of the ‘Wild West’ to captive audiences. Much of the pageantry and showmanship of modern rodeo comes directly from these Wild West shows. Today rodeo competitors still call rodeos ‘shows’ and they participate in ‘performances’.

Oklahoma Wild West Shows

The Hollywood and rodeo cowboys got their starts in wild west shows and circuses that became popular around 1900.  Three of the more popular wild west shows originated in Oklahoma from the Mulhall Ranch, the Pawnee Bill Ranch and the Miller 101 Ranch.

Zach Mulhall's ranch near Guthrie covered 80,000 acres in Oklahoma Territory.  He started a wild west show starring his daughter Lucille, the world's first "cowgirl," who became a favorite of President Theodore Roosevelt.  The show toured from 1900 to 1915.

Gordon William Lillie built his ranch near Pawnee and became famous as "Pawnee Bill."  This name was given to him by the Pawnee Indians, who made him their "white chief" after he saved the tribe from starvation during a harsh winter.

Pawnee Bill and some of his Indian friends later joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but in 1888, Lillie started his own.  The Pawnee Bill Show featured his wife, May, a refined Philadelphian who learned to ride broncs sidesaddle and became a sharpshooter with guns.  Pawnee Bill's show toured the world until 1913.

The ranch, with many relics and memorabilia, is also the home of an authentic 60-foot poster advertisement for a 1900 Pawnee Bill Wild West Show performance in Blackwell.  The ranch and museum are open to the public.

Perhaps the most popular of all wild west shows originated on the Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch near Ponca City, built by Col. George Washington Miller and his three sons.  Their show toured the world from 1908 until the Great Depression and even included a team of Cossacks, but it remained true to its western roots with headline acts featuring cowboys and Indians.

Cowboy Competitions

At the same time, other cowboys were supplementing their income at their usual informal competitions, which were now being held in front of paying spectators. Small towns across the frontier would hold annual stock horse shows, known as 'rodeos', or ‘gatherings’. Cowboys would often travel to these gatherings and put on what would be known then as ‘Cowboy Competitions’.

Of these two types of shows only the cowboy competitions would survive. Eventually Wild West Shows began to die out due to high costs of mounting them and many producers begin strictly producing the less expensive cowboy competitions at local rodeos, or stock horse shows. The joining of competition with the gatherings would be the spark for what we now see as RODEO, originally two different aspects of western life joined to become a unique sport.

Spectators would now pay to see the competitions and cowboys would pay to compete, with their money going into the prize pool. Many towns began to organize and promote their local rodeo, just as they do today. In frontier towns all over the west (like Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Prescott, Arizona) the rodeo became the most anticipated event of the year.