Pioneer Days, 1934
As Ogden’s citizens struggled through the Great Depression, newly-elected mayor Harmon Peery decided to expand the city’s Pioneer Days celebrations and stage a rodeo to encourage tourism and to get patrons of the local livestock show to spend their money in Ogden. Planning for the rodeo began in April 1934.
The three-day celebration included a midway carnival, dances, beard-growing contests with cash prizes, parades, and three rodeos. Knowing that visitors would have limited money to spend, organizers kept the events free or moderately priced. Tickets for the rodeos were priced at $0.50 each and sold at local stores.
A five-episode pageant, “Like a Fire is Burning,” held at the Ogden Stadium, was the first event of the Pioneer Days celebration. The Weber County Daughters of Utah Pioneers sponsored the pageant. The next day, whistles and sirens at factories and in railroad yards shrieked prolonged blasts while more than a dozen airplanes flew in mass formation to make the formal opening of Ogden’s Pioneer Days.
Rodeo performers and participants showed up in town along with their horses, long-horned Texas steers and Scotch highland cattle. Rodeo organizers promised that there would be “120 events in 120 minutes,” and the chutes were set up to release the animals at a second’s notice. Crowds packed into the 10,000-seat stadium for all three rodeos, and more stood along the fences the catch a glimpse of the events.
The first Ogden Pioneer Days celebrations were deemed a complete success. Ogden’s citizens and administrators all agreed the event should be an annual tradition. Over the years, Pioneer Days has grown, and today the rodeo draws over 30,000 attendees.
