Denver Union Stockyards - Old Post Card Photo
Yes, folks, it's true. I did my duty as an Ag blogger yesterday and attended the annual Denver livestock show, my first. There was no lack of cowboy hats, or Coors beer and peanuts, or vendors.
Incidentally, like many other stock yards around the country, all that remains of the original yards are a few pens and the main building.
The last four photos were taken by myself.
---Kalpa
Its beginnings...
The year was 1906. Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, there were 45 states in the Union, Colorado was getting ready to celebrate its thirtieth birthday and sirloin was ten cents a pound. On the outskirts of Denver, a growing town with a population of 200,000, stockmen from around the West gathered to show their animals, buy and sell breeding stock and encourage a meatpacking center to rival those in Kansas City and Chicago. From this beginning, the National Western Stock Show, Rodeo and Horse Show was born. The grand champion steer that first year was a Shorthorn that tipped the scales at 1,150 pounds and befitting its status, fetched an eye-popping 33 cents a pound....
National Western Stock Show Parade - Denver
Simmental Sale Participant
Simmental Sale Participant
Challenger Tractor - Caterpillar and Deere were show sponsors
Squab on display