History of the Rodeo Clown

This week an icon in the PRCA rodeo passed away.

Lecile Harris (1937-2020), died in his sleep Wednesday night after the final show of the Dixie National Rodeo and Livestock Show in Mississippi, my home state. At 83 years young, Mr. Harris was still doing what he loved, being a rodeo clown. And he was good at it.

It was a shock to hear the news on Thursday morning, and it got me to thinking about the history of rodeo clowns.

When competitive rodeo became all the rage in the early 1900s, promoters hired cowboys to entertain the crowd between events. Prior to that, let’s just say the games and matches played out on the plains between cowboys matching skills and wits, there wasn’t really any need to “entertain” between the events that the cowboys themselves had come to see. But once there was a paying audience, those people wanted a lot of bang for their buck, and wanted to be entertained every second they were at the “show”. Much like the people at the medieval jousting matches and the Roman Coliseums.

The cowboys whose job it was to entertain the crowd started wearing oversized, baggy clothing, and some even painted their faces just as circus clowns do. The rodeo clown took a lot of cues from circus clowns and court jesters as their job—initially— was the same: to entertain the rowdy crowd. It wasn’t exactly dangerous… unless the crowd became unruly, I suppose.

But soon the crowds grew bored and wanted more danger and ill-tempered bulls were brought in for the bull-riding events. As most of us know, bull riders are only expected to stay on for 8 seconds and after that, that mean, ornery, I-will-trample-everything-in-my-path bull is out for blood.

[Photograph of Rodeo Clowns], photograph, June 24, 1959; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth531666/: accessed February 14, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Erath County Genealogical Society. 

So the rodeo clowns stepped up to distract the bulls from the rider so he could get to safety. Many times the clowns worked in pairs, and I’ve seen as many as three or four in the arena. In the 1930s, Jasbo Fulkerson introduced a wooden barrel as a barrier and a way to escape the enraged bull. These days, a heavy duty plastic barrel does the trick, but still, it all looks quite scary when you see a bull butting one of those things and you know a bullfighter is inside!

These men are professional athletes and the proper term for them is bullfighter all across the globe. Many still wear baggy bright clothes and all kinds of flashy things to get the bulls’ attention, but make no mistake, they are highly skilled at what they do. When a rider is injured or hung up, they risk their lives to free that rider. Honestly, they are some of the bravest, most skilled men I’ve ever seen in action.

In larger rodeos, there are bullfighters who are 100% focused on the bull, and then there’s the rodeo clown (sometimes called the barrelman) whose job is to poke fun at the bull, the riders, the other bullfighters and entertain the crowd, while also convincing everybody he’s the tough one out there in the ring. But even that seasoned old cowpoke who might be a bit over the hill has paid his dues, and at one time, he was the one with an angry bull breathing down his neck.

Such was the case with Lecile Harris. He started out wanting to ride bulls, but his tall, lanky frame wasn’t suited to the job. He fell into the job of bullfighter when another guy failed to show up one day, and the rest is history. He was a natural and was always a “class clown”, so he loved hamming it up for the crowd. At the age of 52, he was injured in the arena, which ended his career as a bullfighter, and he spent the next 30 plus years in the ring entertaining the crowds as the main attraction, the Rodeo Clown. Six decades in the ring, and he’d performed a few hours before he drew his last breath.

RIP, Lecile Harris.

Lecile Harris (1937-2020)
www.lecile.com

For more older photos of rodeo clowns, visit Lecile's FB page and scroll through the photos. Or go to Youtube and search for rodeo clowns or rodeo bullfighters to see some of these guys in action!

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Ride 'Em Cowboy

It's Rodeo Time

In September I wrote about the history of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. That will begin here in Houston at the end of February. The one in San Antonio began last week. That made me curious about rodeos and wild west shows like Buffalo Bill's.

I discovered that rodeos are much older than most ever give them credit for being. Spanish ranchers along with their Mexican ranch hands (vaqueros) got together for cattle wrangling and bullfighting as far back as the sixteenth-century.

The vaqueros started equestrian contests and called them charreadas. They also practiced steer wrestling which had been part of an ancient tradition dating back to the days before the Olympics when the ancients practiced bull jumping, bull riding and bull wrestling. It is believed that bull wrestling could have been an ancient Greek Olympic event.

The events eventually found their way to the United States in the nineteenth-century at fairground, racetracks, fiestas, and festivals. However, the events of bull jumping and bull wrestling didn't have that much appeal to Anglo cowboys or audiences. Anglo cowboys preferred roping, riding, and racing. Those events were still enjoyed in Mexico at the charreada, the style of rodeo originating in Jalisco, Mexico.

If not for a Texan black cowboy named Bill Pickett, steer wrestling most likely would never have made its way into our rodeos. He's the one who devised the method of bulldogging similar to what we see today. He would jump from his horse to the steer's back, bit its upper lip and throw it to the ground by grabbing its horns.  His performances at rodeos in Central Texas led to his being discovered by an agent who signed Bill for a tour of the West. The publicity from his bulldogging at the 1904 Cheyenne Frontier Days brought him a contract to travel Oklahoma 101 Ranch Wild West shows. He is now a member of two rodeo halls of fame, recognized as the inventor of the event. That's the only rodeo event ever attributed to one individual. 

                            Picture by NormanFilms  Public Domain

Believe it or not, women appeared in rodeos in the early days of the twentieth-century. The first one was Tillie Baldwin who was a champion trick and bronc rider and racer. In 191, at an exhibition, Tillie participated in bull dogging, but women's contest    never took on, but it made the cowboys more  enthusiastic for the sport without the lip-biting. 

After the Texas Revolution, Texas Anglo cowboys learned everything about the sport of the vaqueros. Ranch versus ranch contests sprang up all over the state with events such as bronc riding, bull riding, and roping contests appearing at race tracks and fairs. 

Then along came William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) 

He created the first major rodeo to tour the nation along with his Wild West show. It opened in North Platte, Nebraska in 1882. His show was so successful that others attempted to create their own which led to professional rodeo. The two enjoyed a parallel existence with one capitalizing on the allure and fame of the other. Their popularity grew and women joined the circuit in the 1890's. Then animal welfare groups began targeting them and are still doing so today.

The actual word "rodeo" was only used occasionally for American cowboys until the 1920's, and even then, professional cowboys didn't use the term until 1945. In those early days, no standardization of the events occurred until 1929. Up to that time, frontier days, stampedes, and other cowboy contests grew in popularity. In 1897, Cheyenne Frontier Days inaugurated it's celebration and even today is one of the most significant of the annual celebrations around the country. The organization of these events fell to the local citizens and their committees who planned everything and chose all the events, made the rules, and arranged for everything else from the stock to officials. Winners at this competition were even considered "World Champions" until 1922. 

As the wild west shows died out, the cowboy competitions remained. Spectators would now pay to see the competitions and the cowboys paid to compete. The money went into a pool to make up the prizes for the winners. Many towns began having their own local rodeos just as they do today in towns like Prescott, Arizona and Cheyenne, Wyoming did in the early days. 

Much more is to be learned about how rodeos became the professional organization it is today and the pitfalls they faced. 


Houston is know for its annual Livestock Show and Rodeo in late February and early March. I loved attending those rodeos and still attend the livestock show on occasion. My favorite event has always been the barrel racing with saddle bronco riding next. 




Since I didn't have enough to have a drawing in December, we'll do it this month for a chance at my book about a barrel-racing rancher's daughter.
Have you ever been to a rodeo? What would be your favorite event? Be sure to leave your email address and comment by midnight Friday, February 14 to be in the drawing. 

Kylee is the youngest of the Danner clan and drops out of college to barrel race full-time and spend more time with her rodeo sweetheart, Jesse Martin. Connor Morris, known as Jesse Martin on the rodeo circuit, is in love with Kylee, but he hides his true identity from her. When the truth of his identity as Connor Morris is revealed in a news item on television, along with a woman claiming to be his fiancee, Kylee is devastated. Connor now has the task of explaining the news bit she saw is not what it appeared. He must gain back not only her trust, but also that of her brothers and her father.  

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Since receiving her first novel contract at age 73, Martha has written and published over 50 books. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to five. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive.

Find Martha at:  www.marthawrogers.com                   Twitter: @martharogers2                                                                      Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/MarthaRogersAuthor