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I use the word tombstone because it is a word from the 1800s, and if anyone was a man from the 1800s, it was Echols, a Texan-turned-Tucsonan who left one request for his 1969 funeral: He wanted a horse and a saddle to be on his tombstone.

His family obliged and were also clever enough to inscribe the words “Mr. Rodeo’’ on the grave.

I stood looking at Grave No. 322 recently and tried to imagine the day in 1925 when Tucson’s first rodeo, La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, was organized and successfully executed in a quick eight weeks. It was conceptualized by Leighton Kramer, a snowbird from Pennsylvania, who was among the first to understand and profit from the growing value of Tucson real estate.

History says it was Echols, a rancher from the Dragoon area who had become a world champion steer roper at the globally famous 1912 Calgary Stampede, who first suggested a rodeo to Leighton and other Tucson leaders.

Whoever made the suggestion, it was an immediate hit.

In 1925, the Daily Star wrote “On every corner one hears nothing but rodeo. …. The clock has been turned back 40 years and the happy old carefree cowtown days of the ‘80s are with us again.�

Echols was indeed Mr. Rodeo – he rode the lead horse in the famous Tucson Rodeo Parade almost yearly until his death in 1969 – but he shouldn’t get all the credit, not even close. So many have done so much that it would take forever to fully highlight 100 years of robust success.

An estimated 4 million tickets have been sold. The list of visiting dignitaries includes everyone from Hopalong Cassidy and John Wayne to Lute Olson and Jake Erlich, the world’s tallest man (8 feet, 6 inches), who performed magic tricks at the 1927 La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.

Magic always seems to follow our February rodeo.

La Fiesta de los Vaqueros was such a big deal that in 1932 three sitting governors – George W.P. Hunt of Arizona, James Rolph Jr. of California and Frederick Balzar of Nevada – rode side by side in Tucson’s fast-rising event alongside the general managers of the world famous Calgary Stampede and Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeos.

Maybe they were here for the sun. Or maybe they were here to learn more about operating a successful rodeo.

Echols rode, roped and, after being elected Pima County sheriff in 1936, kept the peace. He became close friends with Hollywood western movie legend Tom Mix, and Will Rogers, an American vaudeville performer who, with Mix, became Echols’ weekend companions at many La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.

At the 1954 Tucson Rodeo Parade, Echols rode the lead horse in a parade that included 16 bands, 3,500 western-clad citizens and a crowd estimated at more than 100,000. Echols rode next to Arizona Gov. J. Howard Pyle.

Our rodeo wasn’t just popular in Southern Arizona, it has been won by the biggest names in rodeo history: legends Jim Shoulders, Casey Tibbs, Ty Murray, Trevor Brazile and Larry Mahan.

“It is as wild west as they come,� said Shoulders in 1959 as he became the most famous cowboy in American rodeo history. He explained that he had driven 12 hours to Tucson from his home in Henryetta, Okla., rode in two events, then turned around and drove overnight to San Antonio for a Saturday rodeo performance.

Rather than get some rest, Shoulders thought so much of Fiesta de los Vaqueros that he drove back to Tucson in time for Sunday’s bull-riding championship, which he won.

Over time, Tucsonans and Southern Arizonans became not just world champions but Pro Rodeo Hall of Famers.

Buck Sorrels, who grew up on a ranch near Sonoita, became a world champion in 1950 and was later inducted into the PRCA Hall of Fame. It wasn’t just cowboys who drew national attention. The Tucson Rodeo Committee was inducted, en masse, into the PRCA Hall of Fame in 2008.

One of rodeo’s most in-demand stuntmen/rodeo clowns, Chuck Henson, moved to Tucson from Montana in 1950 and became part of the UA’s rodeo team. Henson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995, the first clown so honored.

Mel Potter, a Tucson High grad and long-time Marana rancher, became one of the most successful stock providers in rodeo history. He was inducted into the PRCA in 1996, followed by Tucson ranchers John and Tom Rhodes, a father-and-son combo, who won a combined six national championships from 1936-46.

Tucson and the surrounding area has been much more than an audience to watch the best rodeo performers of the last 100 years, it has produced PRCA national champions Sherry Cervi (four times!), Bucky Bradford, Cory Petska, Matt Sherwood, Roy Adams, Del Haverty, Joe Sublette and Buddy Peak.

After Ed Echols’ death in 1969, the person most identified with La Fiesta de los Vaqueros was Gary Williams, a Rincon High School grad who became the rodeo’s general manager from 1995-2000. There is a well-known photograph of Williams, taken by former Daily Star photographer Mike Christy in 2015: Williams is leaning against a large Tucson Rodeo sign outfitted in his rodeo gear: cowboy hat, cowboy boots and perhaps the greatest cowboy mustache ever photographed.

In a 2020 feature on the Top 100 Sports Figures in Tucson history, Williams told me that “the saddest time is 5 o’clock on Sunday afternoon when the rodeo is over. I’d just as soon start slack again on Monday morning.�

He described his long tenure on the Tucson Rodeo Committee as “a wonderful life.�

If you could get the energetic Williams to stop long enough for a sit-down conversation, you might’ve noticed that he wore a ring fashioned as a saddle. It was the ring his father, Gene, a rodeo man to the core, wore when he introduced his son to rodeo in the 1950s.

Fittingly, when Williams died in 2023, his family posted an online obituary that was titled “What a Ride.�

It is a headline that could well serve as a definition of the first 100 years of La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.