Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon

Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon

Mid-September

One of the best-known rodeos in the West, held since 1910 in the small ranch town of Pendleton, Ore. The home of internationally known saddle makers, Pendleton is also the heart of Oregon's wheat-producing region. The week-long round-up started as a celebration of the end of the wheat harvest. Happy Canyon was inaugurated four years later when two local men decided the entertainment at a local fair was of poor quality and too expensive. The Happy Canyon shows at first depicted historical episodes and evolved into the present-day Happy Canyon Pageant, a presentation by Northwest Indian tribes that features a teepee encampment and ceremonial dancing. Nowadays, each day of the rodeo begins with a cowboy breakfast (ham, eggs, flapjacks) at Stillman Park and ends with the pageant.
In between, the rodeo features the standard competitions approved by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association—bronco riding, bareback riding, Brahma bull riding, steer wrestling, and calf and steer roping. Additionally, there are wild horse and stagecoach races and wild-cow milking.

CONTACTS:
Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Association
1205 S.W. Court Ave.
P.O. Box 609
Pendleton, OR 97801
800-457-6336 or 541-276-2553; fax: 541-276-9776
www.pendletonroundup.com