In anticipation of the great 1921 event, Grace Sparkes wrote: “Oh boy! Can’t you hear the grinding of the old chute doors, the smell of clean horse flesh and the general atmosphere of the town just percolating with Frontier Days?"
However, just the year before, it was thought that the World’s Oldest Rodeo had run its course. There wasn’t enough profit in 1920 to hold the show in '21, but a group of businessmen and townspeople started a new fraternal organization which would be called the Smoki (Smoke-eye) People. They held a fundraising fair called the Way Out West Show May 26, 1921 to raise money for the rodeo.
Not only did the rodeo go on, but it was able to upgrade. This was the first rodeo to utilize a public address system. The “electric announcer…carried [one’s voice] to every part of the grounds,” the Weekly Journal-Miner revealed. It involved the latest technology of the day costing “several hundred dollars,” and the same style was being utilized by US President Wilson.
