Burwell, NE

A galloping horse, a cloud of dust, and a hearty holler from a cowboy are images of a typical day on ranches around Garfield County in the middle of Nebraska’s Sandhills country. For 80 years, cowboys around here and from across the Great Plains have brought the sights and sounds of their ranches to Burwell, Neb., (pop. 1,224) putting their experience and grit to the test in Nebraska’s Big Rodeo.

“It’s one of the great old-style rodeos with a big, open, spacious arena,” says Billy Dimmitt, 31, a bareback and saddle bronc rider who has competed in the rodeo every year since 1985.

Dimmitt, who owns a construction business in Pierre, S.D., grew up around horses and cattle on his family’s ranch four miles southeast of Burwell and is the third generation of his family to participate in the annual event. His grandfather, Bill, and his father, Sonny, 53, both competed in the Burwell rodeo and others around the state.

“I used to ride barebacks and bulls and got in the roping events,” Sonny says. “I enjoy meeting all the people, especially the ranchers and farmers from around the area.”

The Dimmitt family has provided horses for the rodeo’s wild horse race for more than 20 years. The race features up to eight three-person teams that try to saddle and ride a bucking horse around the racetrack and back into the arena in the shortest time.

Burwell’s rodeo began in 1921 as a competition among local cowboys looking for a friendly contest. “They’d say ‘I can ride that horse better than you’ and that kind of thing,” says Peggy Haskell, rodeo information director and a Burwell resident of 41 years.

Within 10 years, Burwell residents had built a huge grandstand with an arena and half-mile racetrack. The original wooden grandstand, chutes, and barns remain in use and comprise the only rodeo grounds in the country listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Competition was suspended for one year during World War II, but otherwise it has been held every year, rain or shine. Keeping true to the ranch work ethic, even a 5-inch downpour a few years ago couldn’t stop the event; the show went on despite the weather.

The rodeo and life around Burwell are closely intertwined. Each July, about 150 volunteers sell tickets, tend rodeo stock, park vehicles, and organize the rodeo parade. More than 10,000 people attend the annual three-day event—which coincides with the Garfield County Fair—scheduled this year from July 26-28.

Everyone around town is an ambassador for the rodeo, says Steve Delashmutt, owner of the town’s weekly Burwell Tribune. Business owners spruce up storefronts; local youths work months in advance painting the rodeo grounds; and church groups and local vendors feed rodeo fans hot beef sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs, and locally made Polish sausage.

The town also hosts a spring high school rodeo and an event for old-time cowboys in late summer. The rodeo arena is kept busy year-round for weekly roping events, a demolition derby, tractor pull, and music concerts.

Some historians even believe that rodeo in the United States got its start in Nebraska in 1882 with Buffalo Bill Cody’s “Old Glory Blowout” in North Platte, 120 miles southwest of Burwell. The horsemanship, pageantry, and ranch-style competition of the “Blowout” gave Cody the idea for his renowned Wild West Show. Like the Burwell rodeo, those shows played before packed crowds in open-air arenas.

It seems the ranching tradition around Burwell lends itself well to one of the last great Old West-style rodeos. “It’s a Wild West kind of deal,” Dimmitt says. “That’s what I like about it.”

Curt Arens is a farmer and freelance writer in Crofton, Neb.

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