Dublin Rodeo Heritage Museum

History of the Worlds Championship Rodeo 1937-1959

1937
Everett Colborn, Harry Knight, Twain and MT Clemons purchase the entire string of rodeo stock and equipment from Col. Johnson and name the new company the “World’s Championship Rodeo“. Everett Colborn finds pasture land 14 miles southeast of Dublin, Texas for his rodeo stock and calls it the Lightning C Ranch With 14,000 acres the Lightnin

g C Ranch became the largest ranch dedicated entirely to rodeo stock in the world. Everett Colborn moves to Texas with his wife Ava and two daughters, Rosemary and Carolyn from Blackfoot Idaho and settles on the Lightning C Ranch. The Santa Fe railroad assigns Colborn a 24 car train to transport the his rodeo stock though out the United States on his yearly rodeo circuit to New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, Arizona and more.

1939
A group of civil minded citizens approach Colborn and his partners to stage Dublin’s first rodeo.

1940
April
The Dublin people watch the first performance of Colborn’s “World Championship Rodeo” in what is now the Dublin City Park.

1940
September
20th Century Fox Movie Company travel to Texas to film Colborn’s “World Championship Rodeo” for a Movie-tone newsreel called “Rodeo goes to Town“. This newsreel was shown through out the United States and overseas during World War II.

“Rodeo Goes to Town” features the Lightning C Ranch roundup of the stock, practicing at the Lightning C arena, the stock driven by horseback into Dublin, the Dublin’s “World’s Championship Rodeo“, loading the stock on the famous Rodeo Train and ends at Madison Square Garden, New York.

1942
Gene Autry’s “Flying A Ranch Stampede” and Everett Colborn’s “World Championship Rodeo” merge into one of the largest and best rodeo with over a thousand head of the best livestock on established ranches, the Lightning C at Dublin, Texas, Gene Autry’s Flying A Ranch in Gene Autry, Oklahoma and a ranch in Florence Arizona. Gene Autry enlists in the service and Everett Colborn takes active business management of the new “World’s Championship Rodeo” with Gene Autry as partner.

1945
The “Dublin Rodeo Association” was dissolved and the “Dublin Rodeo Enterprise, Inc.“ was formed. The Colborn Bowl was built seating 9,000 being the largest outdoor in the southwest at that time. Gene Autry comes home on leave from the service attends the Dublin Rodeo.

1946
Dublin’s “World Championship Rodeo” is changed to “Pre-Madison Sq. The first sanctioned cutting was held in the Colborn Bowl this year.

1947

47,000 people attended the Pre-Madison Sq. Garden World’s Championship Rodeo.

1959 Everett Colborn sells his interest in the World’s Championship Rodeo and retires. The rodeo stock is moved to another location, thus ending the rodeo career of the man that some refer to as “the Father of Rodeo“.