{"id":242342,"date":"2022-11-10T14:13:06","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T20:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=242342"},"modified":"2022-11-10T14:53:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T20:53:53","slug":"historic-rodeo-back-in-downtown-las-vegas-saddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/historic-rodeo-back-in-downtown-las-vegas-saddle\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Rodeo Back in Downtown Las Vegas Saddle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Las Vegas Days, an annual western-themed parade and celebration of Las Vegas\u2019 history, will offer two days of rodeo at the CORE Arena at the Plaza Hotel on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 11 and 12, 2022.<\/p>\n

\"Roy
Roy Rogers (on Trigger) and Dale Evans ride in the Helldorado Days parade while filming the 1946 movie ‘Heldorado’ in Las Vegas. (Image: ebay.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Admission is free for the rodeo, which will feature bull riding, barrel racing, breakaway, team roping, tie-down roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, and bareback riding. Prize purses for the champions total $40K and include custom belt buckles.<\/p>\n

Highway to Helldorado<\/b><\/h2>\n

Longtime Las Vegas visitors are more likely to remember Las Vegas Days by the name it went by until 2017; Helldorado Days began in 1934 when Arizona carnival barker Clyde Zerby sought a quick buck from Hoover Dam workers. His event included a \u201choochie-coochie dance show\u201d and other attractions aimed at letting the workers blow off steam. Zerby stole the name from a similar festival in Tombstone, Ariz. Prospectors joked that they came to Tombstone looking for gold \u2013 their Eldorado \u2013 but found nothing but a \u201cHelldorado\u201d of heat and bad jobs.<\/p>\n

In 1935, the Las Vegas Elks Lodge took the reins of the festival and \u2013 with support from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and local businesses \u2013 made it a family-friendly affair. Held to commemorate the 30th year of Las Vegas\u2019 founding, it featured a parade, rodeo, and a carnival.<\/p>\n

\n

Of the first Elks-run Helldorado, the Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal <\/em>reported: “The parade staged in Las Vegas Friday night was the most unique ever seen in the southwest. Throughout the two-mile length of the parade, not a single automobile or truck appeared. In the ancient buggies, carts, and wagons rode revelers dressed as cowboys or prospectors, and girls wearing full-skirted dresses.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The newspaper recommended that it become \u201cone of the nation’s most colorful and famous annual celebrations,” and that\u2019s exactly what happened. Each year, as Las Vegas grew, Helldorado Days grew in lockstep. By 1946, the festival was so well-known that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans filmed a movie in Las Vegas, Heldorado,<\/em> with Helldorado Days as the backdrop. (There was already a 1934 film called Helldorado,<\/em>\u00a0so one \u201cl\u201d was dropped.)<\/p>\n

That same year, a young Marilyn Monroe \u2013 then Norma Jean Baker \u2013 met Rogers during the movie’s filming, and even got to ride Trigger. (\u201cWhat a horse!\u201d she wrote in a letter to LA modeling agent Emmeline Snively.) Monroe happened to be in town establishing her required six-week Nevada residency to divorce her first husband, James Dougherty.<\/p>\n

In 1979, the Elks moved the aging Helldorado parade from Fremont Street to the more popular Las Vegas Strip. In 1985, however, the National Finals Rodeo established itself in Vegas, overshadowing Helldorado in every subsequent year. By 1997, Helldorado Days gave up the fight.<\/p>\n

Return to Hell<\/b><\/h2>\n

In 2005, the Elks\u2019 Helldorado returned to downtown as part of the City of Las Vegas’ 100th birthday celebration. The event has been held every November since \u2013 except for 2020 \u2013 thanks to funding from the City\u2019s Centennial Commission.<\/p>\n

After the Elks, who own the Helldorado name, stopped organizing it in 2017, the city was forced to come up with another name. They chose \u201cLas Vegas Days.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Las Vegas Days Rodeo is fully sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and the Women\u2019s Professional Rodeo Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Las Vegas Days, an annual western-themed parade and celebration of Las Vegas\u2019 history, will offer two days of rodeo at the CORE Arena at the Plaza Hotel on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 11 and 12, 2022. Admission is free for the rodeo, which will feature bull riding, barrel racing, breakaway, team roping, tie-down roping, steer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":242351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3313,81896,81886],"tags":[83655,83654,83650,83651,23,83652,83039,83649,83653,83656],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHistoric Rodeo Back in Downtown Las Vegas Saddle - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Las Vegas Days, an annual western-themed parade and celebration of Las Vegas\u2019 history, will offer two days of rodeo at the CORE Arena at the Plaza Hotel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/historic-rodeo-back-in-downtown-las-vegas-saddle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Historic Rodeo Back in Downtown Las Vegas Saddle - 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