PREORDER. SHIPPING IN JUNE.
The Texas Prison Rodeo was a rodeo and an annual celebration event for inmates in the Texas Prison System, held in a stadium in Huntsville, Texas. The stadium was located at the Huntsville Unit. The events included bareback basketball, bronco riding, bull riding, calf roping, and wild cow milking.
Marshall Lee Simmons, the general manager of the prison system, started the rodeo in 1931. Johnny Cash played his first-ever concert at the Texas Prison Rodeo in 1956. In 1986, structural problems with the rodeo arena caused the facility to close. The rodeo ended because the state began getting money from the federal government for educational and recreational programs for the inmates and Texas no longer needed to raise money to buy educational and recreational materials. Several unsuccessful attempts to restart the rodeo occurred in the 1990s.
The rodeo became part of the history of the US space program, when during the training for the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz mission, NASA brought the cosmonauts in training, along with other Soviet personnel, to the Huntsville rodeo.
We faithfully reproduced a rodeo belt buckle we picked up a few years back while traveling the Texas backroads. It measures 3.5x4.5 inches, accommodates belts from 1.5 to 2.25 inches wide and is handmade in Texas from German Silver and copper.
We expect to ship the buckles in early late June.
Limited quantities. Not returnable.
