by David Wolman
North of the city, a new Frontier Park stood on what had until recently been a flat swath of prairie. A freshly scraped and rolled dirt racetrack surrounded a grassy area for bronco busting and steer roping. An eight-foot steel fence enclosed the whole park, and workers were putting the final touches on a new steel grandstand. Downtown, men were busy stringing up copper cables to power a new streetcar system, with a spur that ran straight to the park. Four plush streetcars, each big enough to hold 125 passengers, were due to arrive from Denver any day.
The city that once was “the scene of many a cowboy orgie [sic]” was now “highly respectable and peaceful,” wrote the Wyoming Times. Cheyenne had endured highs and lows since its birth as a railroad outpost forty years earlier, to emerge as a cosmopolitan state capital with more than 10,000 residents. It boasted streets lined with splendid homes and bustling downtown businesses. The Atlas Theatre had recently opened a block from the train depot, with 550 seats, a large stage, a penny arcade, and a soda fountain.
In March, the first round-the-world car race had passed through en route from New York to Paris the long way, via Asia and the Pacific. The lead car, driven by an American team, was met by the “greatest public demonstration since the famous ride of president Roosevelt,” and rolled down 17th Street accompanied by a band of cowboys. August brought “the largest tent ever made with the greatest circus human eyes ever beheld”: the Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Even as Cheyenne followed the rest of the country in a mad hustle toward tomorrow, the Old West lived on. In the weeks leading up to the rodeo, a Wyoming policeman arrested Bert Starr, one of the West’s most notorious horse thieves. The papers praised the officer’s bravery, since Starr was found to be armed with two knives and three guns, and “not only has a strong aversion to officers in general, but is a dead shot.” Just two days before Frontier Days opened, news of the day included a report that a twelve-year-old girl in the town of Big Muddy had killed a “monster” rattlesnake by crushing its head with a pair of iron horse hobbles.
Frontier Days depended on this wild reputation. Indeed, it cashed in on it. The “Grand Pageant of the West That Was” was a place for westerners to preserve and revel in their history—at least a white man’s version of it—and share it with anyone willing to pay for the privilege. The participants, the events they competed in, the between-act entertainment, even the city itself were all just a step or two removed from the actual frontier. This aura of authenticity, The Denver Times wrote, was what made it unique:
There is no professionalism about the show, save the professionalism which spends its days in the saddle, and its nights sleeping on the ground; that faces blizzards in winter and torching heat in summer; that conquers wild horses and fights wild beasts—the professionalism that made the West of today a possibility.
The country’s budding domestic tourism industry had started promoting travel through the still-exotic West as “a ritual of American citizenship.” The railroad companies ran publicity campaigns encouraging wealthy Americans to forgo their next European vacation and “See America First.” The public was hungry to see a world it had read about in books like The Virginian, the first successful “western” novel, set in central Wyoming, and silent films like The Great Train Robbery. By 1908, many visitors to Frontier Days were “residents of the effete east,” as the Wyoming Times put it, in search of an experience to cap off their first summer traveling beyond the Mississippi:
From what the tenderfoot has heard and read, the great west is still peopled with grizzled men with buckskin shirts, or hairy chaparejos, and he strains his eyes from the car windows to catch the glimpse of . . . the characters which his favorite fiction has taught him people the west. He will look in vain, for he is looking for the west as it was. The conditions that raised up the heroes of the pioneer days are rapidly passing away . . . but for one notable exception.
That exception was Frontier Days, which offered “no cheap imitations or sugarcoating to sweeten the tongues of the tenderfoot.” It was the real thing, “triumphantly beckoning the world to see that courage, daring, strength and skill are still to be found even in this new and more modern west, if one but knows where to look.”
The rough-knuckled honesty of the rodeo was something that could never be captured in a dime novel, a movie clip, or a magazine article. It had to be seen live.
LOCAL RANCHER, RODEO CHAMP, and owner of the notorious bronc Steamboat, C.B. Irwin greeted the paniolo and Emily at the train station. Irwin was a giant and gregarious man, a cowboy-entrepreneur with a booming voice and personality to match. Originally from Missouri, he brought his wife, son, and three daughters to Cheyenne in 1903, where they eventually adopted or fostered seventeen more children.
In 1906, Irwin had won the Frontier Days steer-roping title with a world record time of 38.2 seconds. He helped run the rodeo during its early years, while still competing as a roper and racehorse owner. His dual role as organizer and contestant opened the door for some light scheming, wrote one contemporary: “While Charlie liked the limelight, he also was inspired by the fact that if managed right he could make a few dollars for himself, a natural event, of course.” Irwin entered Thoroughbreds in races that were meant for cow horses only, giving his riders a decided speed advantage.
He was a gracious host to the Hawaiians, introducing them to a friend who owned a ranch just outside town where they would be staying. Meanwhile, Cheyenne locals had been anticipating the Hawaiians’ arrival for weeks. When the Wyoming Tribune ran their photo on its front page, the city was already full of speculation about how much of a threat the “lithe youngsters from the far Pacific” posed, if any.
The tenor of newspaper coverage of the paniolo mixed curiosity, disdain, and halfhearted respect. The Hawaiians may have been champions back home, but this was the heartland of cowboy country, not some tropical speck halfway around the world. To anyone unaware of Hawaii’s status as a U.S. territory (read: most Americans), these men weren’t just the first competitors from outside the continental United States. They were foreigners. It would have been radical to refer to them as American, and sheer blasphemy to point out that Hawaii’s cattle culture predated Wyoming’s—not that anyone knew.
Race and racism were already headline news in the summer of 1908. The same day the Hawaiians arrived in Cheyenne, a riot erupted in Springfield, Illinois, after a white woman accused a black man of sexual assault. Mobs of whites roamed Abraham Lincoln’s hometown for the next three days, burning black homes and businesses and brutalizing anyone who resisted. Six people died and more than a hundred were injured.*
Yet while most of American society remained segregated and hostile toward any attempt at change, the world of sports was inching toward integration. Three weeks earlier, John Taylor, the son of former slaves, ran as part of the winning 1,600-meter relay team at the Olympic games in London. He was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal. Charles Follis, “The Black Cyclone,” had become the first professional American football player when he signed with an Ohio team in 1904, the same year Frontier Days had cheered Bill Pickett’s bulldogging. In Pennsylvania, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team was taking on—and defeating—powerhouses like Harvard, Syracuse, and Penn.
In 1902, lightweight boxer Joe Gans had become the first African American world champion. Six years later he was joined by heavyweight Jack Johnson. Marshall “Major” Taylor, a black track cyclist, won the world 1-mile championship in Montreal in 1899. In horse racing, black jockeys won fifteen out of the first twenty-eight runnings of the Kentucky Derby. And just four years after the paniolo competed in Frontier Days, Hawaii’s Duke Kahanamoku became an international sensation when he competed as a swimmer in the 1912 Olympic Games and introduced the world to the sport of surfing. Bigotry and segregation were still the norm, but athletes of color were starting to play on the same fields as white men—and winning.
In Hawaii, the question of fair play for their boys in Cheyenne was an iss
ue before the contest even started. Hawaiians wondered, for good reason, whether the paniolo would be cheated out of an honest shot at the title. After all, they were malihini, outsiders, and would be dependent on their hosts for horses as well as refereeing during the competition. Jack Low even brought letters from Wyomingites in the islands urging the Frontier Days organizers to give the paniolo “a very square deal.”
The Honolulu papers reported “some attempts at partiality” in Cheyenne, “an evident wish on the part of the management of the show that the championship this year should not go outside of Cheyenne.” As a result, “things were made about as hard for [the Hawaiians] as they could [be] without being off color.” The article made no specific allegations, but anyone with experience in rodeo knew of at least one way a cowboy could easily be hobbled in competition: through his horse.
In steer roping, perhaps more than in any other event, the bond between man and horse is critical. Even the best roper in the world has little chance on a badly trained or unfamiliar mount. The event organizers had promised to supply horses for the paniolo to use in competition, but days went by with no sign of them. Frustrated, the cowboys had little choice but to pass the time visiting Frontier Park each day, where they sat on the fence and watched their opponents practice.
About two days before the rodeo started, the paniolo finally received their horses. They found the animals to be well trained—Archie called them “fast and intelligent,” but also too hardmouthed, meaning they were accustomed to rougher handling than Hawaiian cow ponies were. That could cause communication problems between man and horse, which in turn could cost precious seconds in competition. It was one more obstacle the Hawaiians had to overcome.
Other rodeos around the country claimed to crown champions, but no title carried as much weight as Frontier Days. Winning in Cheyenne made a man the undisputed world champion, the rodeo equivalent of Olympic gold. To mainlanders, the idea of a cowboy from outside the state, let alone from Polynesia, taking home top honors was laughable.
Into this world of outsize cockiness came the Hawaiians, their heavy rawhide lariats drawing quizzical looks from the cowboys who had gathered to scope out the newcomers. But when they were finally able to practice, it became clear how deadly accurate the paniolo could throw. The smirks began to fade.
13
Opening Day
EARLY IN THE MORNING of August 20, a band of cowboys in white and yellow silk shirts galloped through the streets of Cheyenne, followed by cowgirls in brightly colored shirtwaists, cowboy hats, and riding skirts. The assembled crowds waved their hats and howled, “Hip hip hip, ki-yi ki-yi ki-yi, wau-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!”
At high noon, the rumble of thousands of hooves shook the ground of Frontier Park, marking the opening of the festivities. Under darkening clouds, 1,500 cowboys, cowgirls, U.S. troops, and Native Americans dashed in a wide circle around the arena. “Moving-picture men” cranked their cameras.
The schedule was largely the same every day, with competitions spaced between exhibitions and lighter fare. For bronco riding and steer roping, the first two days consisted of heats to narrow down the field of competitors, followed by a final showdown on the third day. One entertainer was a sharpshooter from Nebraska named Captain A. H. Hardy, whom Eben had met the year before. Hardy was known for feats like hitting thousands of small wooden balls out of the air without missing. (His record was 13,066 in a row.) Hardy’s new stunt for this year’s rodeo was shooting glass balls with a .22 rifle while seated in a car that was speeding around the track.
But most spectators were there for the marquee events: bronco riding and steer roping. The horses picked for the bucking contest were advertised as “the toughest lot ever dragged into a show arena.” One mount, “a regular spittin’ kitten,” fought so hard he had to be roped and thrown just to get a saddle on him. Clayton Danks, the previous year’s champion, drew a mount named Dynamite that was known for unpredictable sunfishing and high-jumping maneuvers. But Danks rode him perfectly, sitting straight up and scraping with his spurs, and his performance earned him a place in the finals.
Another bronco rider almost didn’t make it there in time to compete. Dick Stanley had climbed off the train from Portland, Oregon, an hour before the event, unpacked his saddle, pulled on a pair of chaps, and hurried to Frontier Park. Stanley, who ran a Wild West show in the Pacific Northwest, had entered the bucking contest by mail. He was described as a “dapper little fellow” who weighed barely 120 pounds soaking wet. A long goatee and fringed buckskin outfit gave him the look of a young Buffalo Bill. His ensemble drew dismissive snorts from the other competitors, who favored high-necked shirts and jeans. “That outfit’s four-flushing, show-off stuff,” one man said.
But the “over-dressed upstart from Oregon” was tough as saddle leather. Stanley had already paid his dues as a bronco buster: he had cracked ribs, busted knees, and broken both legs and a shoulder. He was twenty-eight, but according to the Wyoming Times, he looked forty.
Stanley stuck tight to a bronco named Fighting Sam, and his solid ride drew generous applause from the audience. The judges picked him and Danks to go on to the finals, setting the stage for one of the great showdowns in rodeo history.
WHEN IT WAS TIME for steer roping, the stands were buzzing with talk of the three men from across the Pacific. Everyone knew the paniolo were in town—“world beaters with a rope” one newspaper called them. But hardly any of the spectators had actually seen them in action, in part because it took so long to get them horses.
When the Hawaiians appeared at Frontier Park, the audience and other cowboys paused to take them in: ornate leather chaps, long rawhide lariats, flowers around their hats, and dark skin—they were different in every way. To locals and tourists in Cheyenne, the paniolo were not just odd; they were interlopers. The Wyoming Times reported that Ikua had “promised to come to Cheyenne and make good his defeat of MacPhee,” last year’s champion, “against all comers.” Whether or not this was accurate—it sounded more like something Eben would say—to Frontier Days fans, the Hawaiians had thrown down the gauntlet.
Half the roping contestants competed the first day, half on the second, with the best to face off in the finals. The steers picked for the event were small and fast, making for harder lassoing and a more entertaining show. A smaller animal was also more likely to roll over completely and back onto its feet when a cowboy tried to throw it to the ground.
First out was a Wyoming cowboy who caught his white-faced steer on his first cast. But his horse let the rope go slack, and the steer scrambled back to its feet. A second throw caught the steer by the leg and snapped it. An agent from the Humane Society ran out and led the limping animal out of the arena and out of sight. A moment later came the sharp crack of a gun, the Daily Leader reported, “and the animal that was galloping three minutes before had become merely beef for the Indians.”
One youngster drew whistles when he nailed his steer on his first cast and tied it in 33.8 seconds. This would have beaten the world record by three seconds, if only the steer hadn’t struggled free. Other ropers failed to finish within the three-minute cutoff and were disqualified.
Jack Low was the only Hawaiian scheduled to rope on the first day. When his turn came, the stands fells silent. No more speculation about the Hawaiians; now it was time to see them ride. Roping on flat grass was a world away from the rocky slopes of Mauna Kea. Jack knew that, just as he knew every steer was unpredictable. He gripped the reins tightly and waited.
The steer sprinted straight down the field, with Jack close behind on his new and unfamiliar horse.
In the West, a cowboy roped with the near end of his lasso tied to his saddle horn. The simple act of stopping the horse pulled the rope taut and brought the animal down.
But paniolo operated in terrain where having a running steer attached to your saddle was a bad idea. If things went sideways—if an animal fell off a cliff or into a hidden lava tube, if the rope got tangled in the trees—the forces i
nvolved could be deadly, as Eben Low could attest. Instead, a Hawaiian often threw his loop with the other end held freely in the opposite hand. He could tie it one-handed around the saddle horn if the throw looked good, but he could also let go in a split second if he had to. The technique wasn’t foolproof, but it was safer. In competition, though, it meant an extra step and extra time.
Jack hurled his loop, caught the steer by one forefoot, and dallied quickly. The steer slammed to the ground and he dismounted to make the tie. But his horse let the rope fall slack, and the steer clambered to its feet. Jack had to throw the steer to the ground twice more to pin it. By the time he was ready to make the tie, his lungs felt like they were being bound up themselves: the dust and exertion had triggered an asthma attack.
Gasping for air, Jack finally looped the piggin’ string around the steer’s feet and stepped back. His time: 2 minutes 25 seconds. It was an unimpressive debut for the islanders. Anyone who had doubts the Hawaiians were in the same league as mainland cowboys was feeling smug.
Next up was Pete Dickerson, a tall, stout cowboy with blue eyes and a slight limp. Dickerson had worked his way across Arizona and New Mexico as a stockman, freighter, and deputy sheriff. A favorite to win at Frontier Days in 1907, he made such a miserable showing that he vowed to stay in Cheyenne, train, and redeem himself the following year. The papers even called him “America’s hope.” But he was a different kind of rival from MacPhee, now comfortable in his new home in Hawaii. Dickerson was a genuine villain: just two weeks before the matchup against the paniolo, he had sexually assaulted his schoolteacher neighbor.
With his first cast, Dickerson just missed the steer. But his second throw hit home, and the animal flipped violently in midair. Dickerson finished tying in 1 minute 11 seconds, the best time of the day.