Let’s Celebrate the National Day of the Cowboy on Saturday, July 27 at This Downtown Western Museum
Let’s Celebrate the cowboys, cowgirls and vaqueros at The Briscoe Museum with a free annual salute to them featuring music, games, art and food.
Cowgirl up and celebrate the legacy of the women of the West – and the cowboys and vaqueros who wrangle the west with them – at the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s National Day of the Cowboy celebration Saturday, July 27, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the museum’s campus on the banks of the River Walk. The free community event includes free admission to the museum and its exhibitions, as well as indoor and outdoor activities. This year’s event tips its hat to the role cowgirls play in the West while showcasing cowboy life, skills, art and more. Cowboys and girls of all ages can enjoy live music, games, crafts, a chuck wagon with tasty cowboy treats straight from the trail, artist demonstrations and hands-on fun. Pre-register in advance to enjoy the free Western fun.
One of the Briscoe’s most treasured annual events, National Day of the Cowboy highlights and preserves America’s cowboy culture and pioneer heritage. The day began in 2005 to celebrate and preserve the heritage of the American cowboy, cowgirl and vaquero in the United States. The state of Texas declared it a day of honor in 2015 and the Briscoe annually hosts a free community day marking the occasion, throwing open the doors of the museum to honor the cowgirl, cowboy and vaquero in us all.
The museum’s National Day of the Cowboy Celebration includes:
- Free event and museum admission and activities for the whole family, including the museum’s 14 galleries and the McNutt Sculpture Garden.
- Cowpoke games and crafts, where you can outfit yer’self in a cowboy hat and spurs, play horseshoes, make your own stick pony and try your hand at barrel racing. Get into traditional cowboy arts like silversmith etching and leather braiding – you can even learn boot embroidery and if you don’t have your own cattle at home, make your own longhorn and more. All arts and crafts are free and supplies are provided.
- Cowboy music with The Barditch Hippies, playing live in the museum’s McNutt Sculpture Garden, where the fantastic bronze sculptures and lush, shady greenery are the perfect backdrop for cowboy fun.
- Authentic chuck wagon cooking with free samples of peach cobbler, along with food truck grub and tasty barbeque available from Cake ‘n Que to satisfy any hungry cowpokes.
- Demonstrations of how to craft the essential tools of the cowboy trade by members of the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association:
- Learn the art of rawhide braiding from braider Leland Hensley.
- Watch forger and engraver Wilson Capron design and engrave bits, spurs and more.
- Lassos and fun with local rodeo cowboys and the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo and watch roper Cowboy Doug dazzle and delight with roping demonstrations – and don’t be surprised if he lassos a cowpoke or two!
- Western art brought to life through live demonstrations:
- Watch acclaimed, award-winning cowgirl artist Mary Ross Buchholz demonstrate illustration techniques using charcoal to create realistic imagery, sharing how to artfully capture Western scenes.
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- Enjoy a live sculpting demonstration by Jason Scull, one of the Cowboy Artists of America working to authentically preserve the culture of Western life through fine art.
- See Texas cowboy artist Mike Capron showcase how he authentically portrays ranching and cowboy scenes.
- Special appearances by Miss Rodeo Texas 2024, Ashlyn Williams, San Antonio River Walk Princess Annette Flores and Marina the Turtle, visiting to remind everyone “stuff the boat” to support this year’s Communities In Schools supply drive. Bring school supplies to National Day of the Cowboy and help Marina stuff the boat to benefit local children.
- A display of escaramuza attire – what the talented women who participate in charreadas wear as they perform – and a local rider answering questions about what it’s like to be an escaramuza.
- Storyteller Antoinette Lakey bringing the story of Mary Fields, the first African American woman stagecoach driver, to life. For many years, Fields traveled the West with her pet eagle, never losing a single horse or package. Hear her story as Lakey reads from “Fearless Mary: Mary Fields, American Stagecoach Driver.” A community leader, researcher, and dramatist, Antoinette Lakey currently serves as Artistic Director for Teatro Anansi, an organization with a mission to connect, celebrate and commemorate African American theatre, performing arts and history within the greater San Antonio community.
- Cowboy poetry with poet Don Mathis, sharing his original poetry about the National Day of the Cowboy.
- A look back at what it was like to be a trail rider and a black cowboy with a storyteller dressed in period attire, sharing about life in the West in 1875.
- Nature’s beauty and resilience on display during the museum’s summer exhibition, Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four, Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The exhibition’s title references Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which had a revolutionary impact on how people from Western cultures envisioned our relationship with the other animals on Earth. In the post-Darwin era, a group of classically trained painters now known as the “Big Four” emerged and helped establish a vision of wildlife and nature that remains with us today. To provide more wildlife perspective, the exhibition includes taxidermy mounts of Cape buffalo, Dall sheep, javelina, bison, Scimitar oryx, turkey, elk and pheasant, as well as a hands-on area that features animal skins, fur and tracks to understand more about wildlife. A special mini-drawing lab also offers step-by-step instructions to draw animals and landscapes.
