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.The Cal-gary Stampede moved through at least three stages towards being accepted asa legitimate and largely unquestioned part of Calgary s history and life.Theprocess of entrenchment of this invented tradition can be further judged bythe way it was imitated and reproduced elsewhere in the province.The first stage in the invention of the tradition of the Calgary Stampedewas a preparatory period from the late 1880s until 1912.During these twodecades, crucial developments took place as rodeo emerged as a popularactivity that was relevant, in part at least, to local conditions.Building onseveral decades of cowboy sports in southern Alberta, prototypes of theCalgary Stampede were enacted in 1912 and 1919, which marked a secondstage in the evolution of an ideology that sustained the Stampede in Calgaryand shaped its future development.The 1912 Stampede was very quicklyreplicated in other parts of the province, showing that its appeal was notmerely a product of local idiosyncrasies.As well, while the 1912 and 1919Stampedes promoted the social legitimacy of rodeo, they included elementsthat required amendment to achieve full social acceptability.The last stage inthe Stampede s invention as a local tradition began in 1923, when it was firstheld in conjunction with the Calgary Exhibition as a formalized event thatwould be repeated without fail in subsequent years.The Calgary Stampede was entrenched in Calgary s civic life by the late1920s, and thus emerged relatively quickly as an invented tradition.Like the1912 and 1919 Stampedes, those after 1923 offered a vision of ranching lifeand methods of production that had in fact existed for only a limited time inthe province s history and now had little connection with contemporary socialand economic systems, even in rural areas.Nevertheless, its believability and 24 MAKING TRADITION: THE CALGARY STAMPEDE, 1912 1939its public acceptance were sanctioned by a history of cowboy sports in south-ern Alberta, by the ongoing involvement of the Calgary elite in sponsoringthe event, by its promise of economic benefit, by its appeal to a history thatpeople wanted to have even if they personally did not, and by the entertain-ment that it offered the public, who faithfully crowded onto the Stampedegrounds each year.Making Rodeo Popular and RespectableThe development of ranching in southern Alberta began tentatively in the1870s but grew significantly after the arrival of the railway in 1883.The Cal-gary Stampedes of 1923 and subsequent years were built on about forty yearsof cowboy sporting events in southern Alberta.As Canadian rodeo historianClaire Eamer notes, these events were the simple contests among workingmen who had few other amusements. These were not rodeos formal eventswith well-understood rules and competitive standards but were informal and2essentially disorganized.Nevertheless, they spread quickly from the ranchesand into the broader culture to create a public taste for cowboy sports thatwould ultimately take the form of rodeos.Local ranchers, for example, wereheavily involved in the horse races held in conjunction with the Fort Macleodfair in 1886, and in addition to participating in the conventional races, theyput on what was called a cowboy race between the first and second heats ofthe meet.This mile and a half race drew seven or eight contestants, and theregulations required that this race be ridden in full cowboy costume. It wasdesigned only as entertainment to break the tension of the real heats theones on which money was seriously wagered and it was clearly secondary to3the conventional races.This cowboy event was, however, significant in that it integrated localcustom and history into the traditional Anglo-Canadian race meet and agri-cultural fair.The same pattern was seen at the week-long Calgary exhibitionof 1894.As the Edmonton Bulletin reported, the best drawing cards of thewhole exhibition were the bucking and roping contests.These events werestill marginal to the more conventional aspects of the fair and each drew onlysix or seven contestants and lasted about one hour.The contestants dividednaturally into two opposing groups, one from the north (Calgary and HighRiver) and the other from the more southern areas around Fort Macleod.Thelavish $100 prize for the roping contest indicates that a network of local fanswas emerging.John Ware of High River was the star of the roping contestsand drew an enthusiastic crowd, many of whom had been present the year DONALD G.WETHERELL 25before when he broke the best previous record at the fair.Fans had by nowbegun to bet extensively on both the roping and bucking horse events; one ofthem wagered an extraordinary $300 on the northern group in the buckingcontest.The betting, the large prizes, and the fact that some people remem-bered and kept track of local records of accomplishment were all signs that4cowboy competitions were becoming locally entrenched as sporting events.The growing public appeal of cowboy events was further revealed by thefact that they were showing up at fairs, horse races, and sports days, and evenas stand-alone events
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