Immigrant NeighborhoodNeighborhood LifeSportsWomen photograph of a paper program with text Boston Garden presents Colonel W.T. Johnson's Rodeo, November 2 to 11, 25 cents, official program with illustration of a cowboy riding a horse

The Wild West in the West End: The Boston Garden Rodeo

In 1931, just three years after its opening, the Boston Garden hosted a new sports phenomenon sweeping the East Coast; the indoor urban rodeos of the kind produced by entrepreneur and cattleman Col. W. T. Johnson. These rodeos in the West End gave eastern sports fans a rare opportunity to relish in the romanticized cowboy image of the bygone American frontier, while also enjoying skillful, and often dangerous, feats of athleticism. Fans of these rodeos were also witnesses to the emergence of professional female sports and the birth of an organized rodeo profession.

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