The Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Old West Museum comprises 160 horse-drawn vehicles and antique motor vehicles used for the pioneer Wyoming city’s Cheyenne Frontier Days™ parades every July.
The event was established in 1897 to bolster the local economy by celebrating the unique western experience of Cheyenne, explains Mike Kassel, associate director/curator of collections. The annual event celebrates the importance of the Transcontinental Railroad, the city’s role during the Indian Wars and its golden years as a major center of the 19th-century cattle boom. The first Union Pacific Railroad train reached Cheyenne on November 14, 1867.
“Organizers hoped to give visitors an experience of the authentic West that they had been reading about in dime novels and seeing in extravaganzas like Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows,” he says.
Combining hospitality, and the participation of Native Americans, the United States Army and cowboy talent from around the nation, the event became the celebration of the American West and the birthplace of modern rodeo, he adds. It acquired the moniker, “The Daddy of ’Em All,” and inspired other spectacles such as
