Smokey Snyder Collection of Pendleton Round-Up Photographs

Smokey Snyder

Albert Edward “Smokey” Snyder was born June 1, 1908, in Cripple Creek, Colorado. When he was a small boy, his family moved to Washington state and then to Alberta, Canada. He saw his first rodeo at Curlew, Washington, and soon after began his rodeo career at the age of fifteen at a rodeo in Hussar, Alberta, Canada.

Snyder competed in roughstock events – saddle bronc, bareback, and bull riding – but won most recognition in his bull riding competitions in the 1930s and 1940s. Snyder’s career brought him seven world championships. He won his first national title in bull riding in 1931 when he was just 23 years old. He then tied for crown in 1932, and won bareback bronc riding that same year. He went on to win bull riding championships in 1935, 1936, and 1937, including a bareback bronc riding title in 1936. Snyder competed and collected trophies for both bull and bareback bronc riding in the rodeo produced by Verne Elliott in London, England, in 1934. He also won the Canadian all-around cowboy title in 1934, and in that same year won the Bareback Riding Championship in Sidney, Australia, at the Easter Royal. It was in 1946 when his rodeo career as a rider ended when he broke his back while bull riding in Reno, Nevada. The name of the last bull he ever rode is not known.

Smokey was one of the leaders in organizing rodeo cowboys for their mutual benefit and protection, and helped raise the standards of rodeo when he was one of the founders of the Cowboys Turtle Association in 1936. He was elected to the Turtle’s board of directors several years.

He was employed by the Kern County Land and Cattle Company when he died in an automobile wreck on October 24, 1965, in Kern County, California. He was returning from a rodeo in Taft when the accident occurred.

Pendleton Round-Up

The Pendleton Round-Up is meant to be “a frontier exhibition of picturesque pastimes, Indian and military spectacles, cowboy racing and bronco busting for the championship of the Northwest.” Participation of Native American tribes in the area has been a strong attraction in the Round-Up arena, at Happy Canyon, in the Indian Village and in the Westward Ho! Parade. Women have been active at the Round-Up as well; Cowgirls in the early days of the Round-Up could be as tough as men. Midway through the Round-Up’s colorful history, a Eugene newspaper summed it up with a characterization that remains applicable today:

“In good times and bad, Pendleton has gone on with the Round-Up. People over on the Umatilla have always been willing to take a chance. Maybe that’s the real cowboy spirit. Maybe it’s a little bit tougher brand of civic spirit. Anyhow, in Pendleton, the show goes on.”