It’s that time of year again – off to Colorado for the annual National Western Stock Show. Every January, the streets of downtown Denver ring with the shouts of cowboys and cowgirls, the jangle of harnesses, the creak of wagons, the roar of classic tractors, and the clop, clop, clop of both shod and unshod hooves. There are usually some excited kids yelling, “Look at the llamas, Mom!” in there, too, and the whole thing is followed up by some very busy street sweepers.
After the Longhorn parade, the whole crew moves over to the National Western Center, for 16 days of shows, sales, rodeos, food and manure. Not necessarily in that order. The parade starts the whole shebang at Union Station on January 9th, 2020, with the grounds open for excitement on the 11th.
In Part 2 of the National Western podcast, we’ll tell you the history of the show and the site. It was birthed from simple beginnings in the late 1800’s as a place where cowboys and ranchers brought livestock to buy and sell, which could be then shipped via the major railhead by the river. For some reason I imagine something like the love child of Lonesome Dove and a Barret-Jackson auction run by John Wayne, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner and The Accountant, set in a mosh pit next door to the Amtrak station at happy hour.
From that time until now, both the National Western Center and the National Western Stock Show gained a little structure and nonprofit status, a set date and some administrative support, some obviously tidy organizational principles, and a truly varied cast of characters. Over the last 100 years and more, it has expanded exponentially into something bigger than life. Rocky Mountain bigger, as in $155 million annual economic impact and 600,000-700,000 (plus) attendees, depending upon the vagaries of severe weather in the mile-high city and whether the Broncos are in SuperBowl contention.
And, top on our list, our wonderful expedition in January of 2018 ended with one of the (few on our journeys) most perfect snowfalls we have ever experienced.
For more information, here are some links to get you started.
https://nationalwestern.com/about/history/
https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll22/id/67993 (aerial photos of the stockyards from the Denver Public Library)
https://nationalwesterncenter.com/about/what-is-the-nwc/history-about-the-site/ (history of the National Western Center)
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/
https://choosecolorado.com/key-industries/food-agriculture/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver
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