A Visit to Oakdale, the ‘Cowboy Capital of the World’
90 minutes from Sacramento, a community celebrates its annual Rodeo Weekend
With a title like “Cowboy Capital of the World,” you might expect more people to know about Oakdale. In my experiences, however, people tend to have no idea what I’m talking about when I tell them that I live in Oakdale. With a population of around twenty-two thousand people, it’s not really that surprising that people haven’t heard of Oakdale. However, given that Oakdale is roughly seventy-five miles from Sacramento, or about an hour and a half drive, it’s not completely unreasonable that people would have some idea where it is. They usually have a better idea when I tell them that it’s near Modesto. I never really thought about why Oakdale was considered the Cowboy Capital of the World until recently; I suspected that it had something to do with the vast number of ranches in Oakdale (including Premiere Throughbreds LLC, Shady Lawn Ranch, Ray-Mar Ranches, Miller Ranch, K↗arrow Ranch, Bloomingcamp Ranch, the Historic Oakdale Ranch, and more) and the yearly Cowboys and Chocolate festival held in May. However, I was surprised to learn that Oakdale owes its title to more to the success of rodeo and less to chocolate.
I asked Karen Serpa, the museum manager at Oakdale’s Cowboy Museum what in her opinion made Oakdale the Cowboy Capital of the World. “Back in the days, we had more cowboys going to the [National Finals Rodeo] than any other town our size,” Serpa told me. “[In] the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there were cowboys coming here — major cowboys like John Bowman, Harley May, [and] Sunny Tureman. These guys were coming to Oakdale, because it was centrally located and within a two-hour radius. You could go rodeo every weekend.”
Once a year, Oakdale experiences a transformation into something spectacular, something worthy of the title “Cowboy Capital of the World”, and that weekend is rodeo weekend — the second weekend of April.
While there are smaller events leading up to the Rodeo Weekend, Saturday’s 9 a.m. parade is what really kicks things off. The parade, which lasts about an hour and a half, starts at Oakdale High (label C on the map below) before rounding the corner to Highway 108. Once on Highway 108, otherwise known as F Street, the parade continues down the road for about two miles until it reaches the Save Mart grocery store (label B on the map below), turning right on Maag and then taking G Street back to the high school.
The parade starts with the Oakdale Saddle Club whose clean, red vest and white shirts must have been washed just for the occasion. They carry flags as they trot past, first the American flag, then the California state flag followed by what they likely think is the third most important flag of the parade, the Oakdale Saddle Club flag. There are other flags, too, used to represent sponsors of the Rodeo; however, the only flag I could identify was the bright yellow flag representing Wrangler jeans.
Shortly later come the Rodeo Queens. There are six Rodeo Queens in total, though a second group followed later, each bearing the name of the city they represent on their sashes and often their pants. Sylvana Talamantes, Miss Oakdale Rodeo Queen, leads the group. Shortly after the Queens, the mayor follows waving to the audience from the top of Oakdale Police Department’s Emergency Rescue vehicle. The first instance of incorporating music into the parade comes with the Oakdale Baseball/Softball Association, which has country music playing over some speakers and lots of children in baseball uniforms sitting on hay.
A short while later, a big rig with a flatbed full of high school students throwing candies comes by and I find myself hoping that I don’t get hit with candy by some random teenager.
Overall, most of the parade is made up with vehicles advertising businesses and people on horseback. There’s also a couple of wagons, one representing the Reno Rodeo, and the other representing Wells Fargo. The parade also features a little bit of live music, including an individual singing, “Should’ve been a cowboy.” While the parade features plenty of advertisements, at the end of the day, it’s all about the horses and cowfolk.
Around 10:30 a.m., the parade wrapped up and I was left with three hours before the rodeo would begin in earnest. I’d never been to the rodeo before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect other than what I had been told weeks prior during a visit with Pat Dumas, the Business Administrator at the Oakdale Tourism & Visitors Bureau.
“It’s a world champion rodeo, so there’s roping, there’s bucking broncos, all the regular rodeo stuff and of course lots and lots of people.” Dumas said. She also talked about the smaller competitions during the week that lead up the rodeo, helping the contestants get ready for the rodeo itself. She also mentioned the Saturday night rodeo dance which would take place in one of the rodeo ground’s clubhouses just hours after Saturday’s rodeo.
On my way to the rodeo, since it was just about lunch time, I managed to find some cowboys frequenting Taco Bell. Even in the “Cowboy Capital of the World” this is an unusual sight, but on rodeo week it’s not completely unexpected.
I got to the rodeo around 1 p.m., with time to find a seat and wait for the events to begin. Outside of the rodeo arena, there were quite a few vendors selling food, drinks, and souvenirs as well as a strength test, trampolines and other things to enjoy; it felt like a festival.
The large rodeo grounds were quiet and dusty before the events would kick off. Bull riding was the first event of the day. Contestants must stay on a bull for 8 seconds all the while without touching the animal or themselves which proved difficult for most contestants.
The majority of the contestants ended up being bucked off or disqualified. However, one of the contestants, Broudreaux Campbell, secured a new arena record with a score of 90 points! This score is composed of a score for the rider and the bull based on how difficult the bull is to ride and how well the rider controlled the animal with a total 100 points possible.
With the conclusion of the bull riding, the next event was calf roping, more aptly put — the intermission. For most people this was a time to get up and get drinks and food. Up until this point, there hadn’t been anyone hawking goods in the stands; however, at this point, several boys and their father showed up screaming “water, sunscreen, peanuts” selling water and sunscreen, both of which were very much necessary for the dry heat, as well as water-soaked bandanas.
After the short intermission that was calf roping, bucking broncos were next.
Although very similar to bull riding, the bucking bronco event seemed to be significantly easier for the contestants. To my relief, this event was also easier to watch with many contestants utilizing a much larger portion of the arena. Overall, the bucking bronco was probably the easiest event to enjoy. There were also a handful of high scores by Tyler Nelson (79.5), Jamie Howlett (80), and David Peebles (87.5, which tied the arena record!) Scores for bucking bronco were calculated much in the same way that they were for the bull riding event.
After the conclusion of the bucking bronco event things began to wind down. While not to the degree of the calf roping, the next few events played out like a second intermission. First, there was steer wrestling where contestants chased down a steer on horseback before dismounting their horse and tackling the steer to the ground and holding it there for a certain duration of time. This was followed by a second round of bucking broncos which played out very similar to the first round. There was also team roping, but unless you like seeing cowboys throw lassos at moving animals, there’s not much to see. The penultimate event, barrel racing, (noteworthy for being the only event with female contestants) was just riding fast around barrels.
With how much the rodeo had wound down, there was only one thing to ramp up the audience once more and ultimately to end off the rodeo with a bang. One of the more inspirational riders was brought in at this point, Blaine Tibbals who had suffered a brain injury only just the year prior and thought he would never ride a bull again. Still, he could participate once more. All the while, the water boys were walking back and forth trying to sell more $3 waters, only to be asked by the girls next to me to duck so they could see the action.
After all of the events wound down, there was a rodeo dance later that night at 7 p.m. and a cowboy church the next morning at 10 a.m. The church took place on the rodeo grounds in one of the club houses, after which I spoke with Talamantes, the Miss Oakdale Rodeo Queen, who told me why she wanted to be a rodeo queen in the first place.
“I absolutely love the sport,” Talamantes said. “I participated. I’ve been raised in a western heritage. My family’s been cattle owners. I own my own cattle and it’s just my lifestyle. I believe in my lifestyle. Rodeo represents that.”
Rodeo represents the western spirit that Oakdale subscribes to and that is why during the Rodeo Weekend Oakdale feels more like the “Cowboy Capital of the World” compared to any other weekend. The rodeo is very much a celebration of the spirit of Oakdale and the lifestyle of western heritage that Talamantes spoke of.
