From the Arizona Daily Star Saturday, Feb. 21, 1925:
VISITORS CROWD HOTELS FOR OPENING OF RODEO
Indians in Native Regalia and Mounted Police to Add Color to Pageant Preceding La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros.
With a crash of martial music from two military bands, the tramp of horses' feet and the colorful stream of cowboys, cowgirls and Indians, the Fiesta de los Vaqueros, Tucson's first annual rodeo will open this morning when the parade starts on west Congress street at 10:30 o'clock.
Contestants and visitors from all parts of the country are filling the hotels and rooming houses of the city to capacity, and more cars are arriving each hour, bringing people who are either taking part, or wishing to see the rodeo at Santa Catalina field.
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Prizes for the parade were offered in categories that included most typical cowboy costume, most typical cowgirl, prettiest horse, biggest hat, finest saddle and bridle, best decorated auto, most comical costume, oldest man on horseback, most typical prospector, best outfitted child under 12, fattest horse and skiniest horse.
Prizes included cash and merchandise from local stores. One merchandise prize was a 100-pound sack of potatoes. The prize for fattest horse was "one big cactus ham from Arizona Packing Co."
The prize for skinniest horse was one pair of ladies's silk teddies from Myers & Bloom. Let's hope the skinniest horse was ridden by a woman.
The Arizona Corporation Commission made arrangements for people without cars to arrive at the parade and rodeo in taxis. Rides were 25 cents each way for a party of four and applied to all the taxi lines in the city during the rodeo.
And, yes, the rodeo meant a school holiday even in 1925:
Aiding in making the first annual rodeo a success, the heads of all of the city schools and the University of Arizona have declared Monday a holiday, and all of the students will be able to attend. The Evans School for Boys, at Tanque Verde, will be closed Monday, and the students are attending the show as a body, the bigger number of them arriving in the city last night to remain over the three days of the event.
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Tomorrow: Some of the performers.
