On the Fourth of July the area now known as Veterans Memorial Field once rang with the shouts of cowboys and the cheers of the crowd in the bleachers. It was rodeo time in Issaquah. The event included a parade, a carnival, fireworks and all the excitement that went with a big event in a small town.
Issaquah hosted a rodeo from 1923 to 1931. The celebration took place on Labor Day for the first four years, but moved to the Fourth of July weekend in 1927 – possibly because of competition from the Ellensburg Rodeo, which also was held on Labor Day.
Spectators at the Issaquah Rodeo were treated to a full program of horse races, steer wrestling, calf roping, steer riding, wild cow milking, and chariot races no doubt inspired by the popularity of “Ben Hur.”
If they worked it right, Issaquah children could make a little money from the event. The late Walt Seil remembered earning a nickel for taking horses from the railroad train to the rodeo grounds when he was five or six. A couple of years later his uncles, Schaller and Elwel Bennett, got young Seil to ride in the Shetland pony races. “We also rode calves coming out of the chutes.”
Schaller Bennett, who competed in rodeos around the Northwest, “cherished a saddle with silver trim that had been awarded to him as the grand prize in an Issaquah Labor Day Rodeo,” recalls his step-daughter Marilyn Dodge Batura.
The rodeo years coincided with Prohibition. “People made their own liquor if they wanted some. There were many fights going on [during the rodeo], so our jail was full nearly all the time,” according to Seil.
His own father, Edward “Nogs” Seil, was involved in one of the dust-ups. “Dad had a sack of beer and he had it hid out there in the bushes. He was talking to a whole bunch of guys there and pretty soon Dad said, ‘You guys like to have a beer?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
“So he went out there to get his beer. Well, someone had seen him hide it and they took it, see. So he come back, and the old man says, ‘Some s.o.b. stole my beer.’
“And a young man was standing there, about 20, 25 years old or so, and he said, ‘Oh, was that your beer I found out there?’
“And bang! My dad struck. Down he went. I thought [Dad] had killed him and I started crying!”
Seil chuckled when he added that this was long before his dad became the town marshall.
The 1928 Issaquah Rodeo was the biggest. The five-day event attracted 45 cowboys and 15 cowgirls to compete for $1,500 in prizes. Famous riders like E.L. “Strawberry Red” Wall came to town. Rodeo promoter Virgil Doty assured local sponsors that a profit was nearly guaranteed. Mother Nature thought otherwise. Seven of the 12 performances were rained out and the event was a financial bust.
Red Wall and his wife, Rose, promoted and put on the last few rodeos. The 1931 rodeo was called “the most successful yet,” but it didn’t make enough to pay off an outstanding debt on the field.
The Issaquah Volunteer Fire Department purchased and cleared the land as a ball field in 1920. The firemen earned money from dances and sporting events and received generous donations from the townspeople, two miners’ unions, and local businessmen. They were within $1,000 of their goal when a mine strike dried up the funding. Rodeos were suggested as a fundraiser, but the firemen only broke even on the first four.
A group of local citizens, organized as the Issaquah Playfield Association, took over and sold shares in an attempt to clear the debt and preserve the community field. The rodeos they sponsored were not successful financially either. By the end of 1932 the Issaquah State Bank, which held the paper, threatened to subdivide the field and sell the lots for housing.
The firemen reorganized, regained control of the field, and built a gymnasium near the site of today’s Issaquah Senior Center. Dances at the gym became community events and helped retire the debt. The field was saved.
Although the rodeo days are gone, the late Bill Evans recalled the excitement they brought. “The cowboys and horses, the western outfits that all the town’s citizens wore, and the carnival all made it the celebration of the year. The carnival was even more exciting to me than the rodeo events. At night with all its glitter and bright multi-colored lights really lighting up our little town, I was able to gather up almost enough memories to just about last me until it was time for the rodeo and carnival to come again the next year.”
Jean Cerar is a volunteer with the Issaquah History Museums. Material for this column came from the museums’ records and the archives of the Issaquah Press. Photos are from the IHM collection.
