River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-07-17

Scatter1ngly settled as 1t appears
to-day. A few years ago the c. &
N. w. Ry. Co. endeavored to boom
the town and a good deal of
building was done which afterward
amounted to nothing, SO that to-day
there are many vacant buildings
and wide vacancies in the town,
where once there were people living
and business carried on.
The Dakota cowboy is as much in
evidence here as the miner is in a
coal or iron mining town, or the
lumber-jack in a lumber town. This
year Pierre celebrated our National
independence for three days, the
Sd, 18th and 5th, and | can safely
say that if noise and burnt powder
indicate patriotism, they have it
here. The first night here | sat in
a chair in a hotel Office and slept,
because there was no bed to be had
in any hotel. Saturday was the day
for the annual roping contest. In
this contest there is an exhibition
of horsemanShip and cattle-catching
which, to "tender-foot" like my
self, is quite interesting. In this
instance six averagesized steers
were selected from the herds of the
ranch men and penned up at one
end of a level tract of ground,
around which a wire is stretched
inclosing one end and two sides,
but leaving the other end of the
tract open. This exhibition draws
each year a large number of people
from the country for miles around.
Both ladies and gentlemen view the
performance with great interest,
and as the typical cowboy is gener-
ally a good deal of gentleman in
the presence of ladies, there is very
little of the profanity and bad Ian
SudSC nCdl CIetL VIC ~ OILCl1 uCeaL
in other places. The time having
arrived for the contest, a steer is
turned loose from the pen and at
once is started on run for the field
with two or more horsemen after
him, yelling and in other ways en-
deavoring TO excite the animal. By
previous agreement all soon fall
back and leave the rest of the work
to the man who is to follow up the
steer until he has succeeded in
throwing a rope over the horns of
the animal, then he and his horse
acting together must not only throw
the steer down by winding the rope
around it's legs, but the man must,
as soon as the steer is down, jump
from his horse and, as quickly as
possible, run up and tie the legs of
the steer in such a way that it can
not get up. If, as in four cases at
this time, a steer gets away by
breaking rope, or in some other
way, another one is let out and an
other man starts after him. The
man who does the catching, throw
ing and tying of his steer in the
least time is given the purse. This
is simply a brief description of the
performance. One can only get a
correct idea of the excitement by
seeing it. In many cases men are
thrown by the sudden, quick move
ment of the horse in stopping at the
time the rope tightens on the steers
horns and go rolling over and over
on the ground. In one instance at
this trial a man was thrown several
times and at one time the horse was
thrown onto him. The steer in this
case was quite large and finally
broke the rope and, after looking
for moment at the man and horse,
threw his head in the air and cody
trotted off the field, complete master
of the game. Both the horses and
the cattle, as we'll as the men, seem
to enter into this trial of strength
and movement with keen relish and
at times it is a question who is do
ing the throwing after the rope is
on the horns, whether it is the man
and horse or the steer. Two or
three times here the steer charged
into the line of spectators, and then
there was no question as to who was
trying to get away, for there were
men on horseback, families in
wagons and carry-alls, fellows with
their best girls hanging on their
arms, men and women afoot, and
children and dogs, all bent on get
ting out of the way of those two
long horns. Of course the ten or
a dozen cowboys were soon after the
steer, as we'll as the one who was
trying to rope him, but fortunately
the steer soon turned in another di-
rection and then everybody got back
in line again.
Add to the roping contest all the
other attractions of celebration in
any ordinary western town of 1000