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Postcard from the Past – Not All Action is at Rodeo

by Wyoming Livestock Roundup

A headline in the June 21, 1979 “Saratoga Sun” proclaims, “Brahma charges through house.” As the following story portrays, not all of the action takes place at the rodeo arena.

A couple in Riverside might have thought they were on the live set of a television commercial Saturday when a black Brahma bull charged through the sun porch of their home.

The bull had jumped the arena fence at the Jamboree Rodeo Saturday afternoon in Encampment and had found his way to Riverside. Members of the stock contractors group were attempting to capture the bull near the Riverside Park… over a mile from the rodeo arena.

According to a Riverside woman, she and her husband, had been sitting in lounge chairs watching television on the sun porch about five minutes before the bull charged through their home. She said they had company and her husband had gone outside to tell the guests goodbye; she heard them call to her to come and see the excitement.

They watched from the front of the house as the rodeo men attempted to capture the bull across the street. She said the men angered the bull by attempting to pull its flank strap loose, which they were unsuccessful in doing. The angry bull then ran toward the back of house and the next thing they heard was a horrible crash.

They ran to the back of the house to see that the bull had gone through an open patio door tearing loose the screen (no damage was done to the glass on the patio door), charged across the room, moved the wood stove slightly and then jumped through the glass picture window. The window was shattered, the bull leaving only a tiny spot of blood on the windowsill. The chairs where the couple had been sitting only a few minutes earlier were just to the left of the bull’s path through the room.

The woman said she and her husband felt very fortunate not to have been sitting in the lounge chairs when the bull charged through.

A column writer for the weekly newspaper added:

Law enforcement officers and insurance adjusters must get a lot of unusual reasons why an accident happened. But can you just imagine the person’s face when a Riverside couple says their house was damaged when a bull ran through it.

It may sound fabricated, but actually did happen… Not only do the law enforcement officers have to listen to such wild tales, but imagine how they feel when they must subdue the bull and get it in a trailer to return to the rodeo. Apparently in Riverside the bull was subdued with mace. I hear that he almost went through the trailer but was safely transported back to the rodeo.

Other information in the column notes: 

Guess the bars had a wild time, at the Woodchoppers Jamboree and Rodeo but also heard the crowd wasn’t terribly unruly. The only remnants of the weekend were piles of empty beer cans in front of the bars… and a bull-damaged porch.

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