Some days at the Rodeo Heritage Museum there aren’t any visitors and other days the visitors come in all at one time.
When you visit the Rodeo Heritage Museum the tour takes about 45 minutes in order to learn of legends and tales of rodeo life when the World’s Championship Rodeo Company was headquartered at Dublin, Texas.
The Rodeo Heritage Museum is not just about the Dublin Rodeo. It’s about Everett Colborn whom came to Texas looking for a ranch to hold his newly purchased rodeo company of Madison Square Garden fame.
The ranch land was actually found through a real estate company in Hamilton county.
The 14,000 ranch called Lightning C Ranch covered Hamilton, Comanche and Erath counties but Dublin had the closest railhead. When Everett Colborn leased his 24-car train to move his rodeo stock over the United States Santa Fe built the stockyards in Dublin.
We have had some amazing people walk in the door at the Rodeo Heritage Museum. Virginia Reger was one of those people. She came in the museum one day and said” I want to see if I can find myself in your photos”. I said “I don’t think we have any photos of you”.
She found herself in a 1955 Madison Square Garden photo of about 100 people. She performed at the Dublin Rodeo and told me “In the contract for Madison Garden Rodeo there were a clause saying you had to perform at the Dublin Rodeo”. Another person that came in was Kent Fillingham who lived on a ranch at DeLeon.
He won the wild horse race at Madison Square Garden Rodeo and the bull riding contest at the Dublin Rodeo in 1954. He would stop by the Rodeo Heritage Museum just to say Hi. An amazing cowboy, he was still roping at 84. Sadly, he broke his leg while roping and moved to Montana where his daughter lived. I am so glad that we recorded Virginia and Kent’s biographies before we lost them in 2020.
We have lost many cowboys and cowgirls in the last two years. In 2018, we lost Lynn Holden (Carolyn Colborn Holden’s husband), Harry Bradberry (who grew up in the rodeo company with his father Charlie Ben working for Colborn) and 8 times World Champion Harry Tompkins who can from New York to live in Dublin.
We skipped 2019 but in 2020 we lost trick riders Mary Ann Mayfield Stephen (a friend and 20-year board member), Virginia Reger and World Champion Kent Fillingham. Now in 2021 we have lost Mary Ann Fincher, a true rodeo museum friend who attended all our events for the last 20 years.
She was a “Sponsor Girl” for Madison Square Garden Rodeo among her many cowgirl accomplishments. Everett Colborn met her at a horse sale in Montana and ask her to come to New York. “Sponsor Girls” were highly skilled ranch girls that Everett Colborn would select from over the United States to take to New York and Boston rodeos to sponsor his World Championship Rodeo.
They spoke on radio stations, appeared on TV programs and attended different programs for publicity. They had a job to do and sometimes they would barrel race and enter different events.
In other words, they were an important part of the World’s Championship Rodeo.
On Thursday January 14th,2021 John Geral and Jamie Smith from Trinchera, Colorado stopped by the museum looking for information on his mother. His mother, Elizabeth Miller, was a 1939 Madison Square Garden “Sponsor Girl “. His sister had asked them to stop at the Rodeo Heritage Museum while traveling to her home.
The first Dublin Rodeo was held in 1940 but the girl we were looking for was a 1939 Madison Square Garden Rodeo “Sponsor Girl”.
The earliest program we have of Madison Square Garden Rodeo was a 1939 program, so we started flipping through the pages and found a page with eight sponsor girls from Texas and there she was.
Amazing things happen at the Rodeo Heritage Museum in Dublin, Texas. Drop by sometime and learn of our rodeo history.
We will welcome you with tales of rodeo’s yesterdays of the 30’s, 40’s & 50’s.