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So-Called Dollar – Wolfville Western Days
1933 Bronze Token So-Called-Dollar Medal 37mm (19.32 grams)
Reference: HK# 689
Cowboy on horse 1/4 left (into background), hat falling off.
WOLFVILLE WESTERN DAYS ONE DOLLAR 1933 TUCSON, *** ARIZ. ***, Text around and center.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Celebrated on the third weekend of October, Western Days is a three-day town celebration featuring a carnival, barbecue cook-off, horseshoes and washers tournaments, quilt show, poker run, and street dancing. Western Days is held downtown at the city park. Numerous food booths and art and craft stands line the streets. Saturday morning begins with a large parade through town. Western days is one of the few festivals in the area that charges no admission to the park or dance.
Officially started in 1958, Western Days has its roots dating from the early to mid 1950s with Leslie and Cecil Mueller’s M&M Rodeo Company organizing cowboy parades to promote the rodeo performances on Smith Creek, just south of Yorktown. A showman and promoter, Leslie Mueller gathered the rodeo cowboys to ride horseback through downtown Yorktown. These processions were said to have been quite a wild sight. Since there were not enough broke saddle horses to go around, many of the cowboys paraded down Main on broncs right out of the bucking horse string.
In the spring of 1958 Mueller, in cooperation with the Yorktown Chamber of Commerce, planned a Western parade to involve the entire community, as well as out-of-town organizations. A two-day rodeo was planned as well. Mueller pledged a pair of handmade boots to the parade’s best-dressed cowgirl, while the Chamber promised boots to the best-dressed cowboy. Other prizes were pledged from community businesses such as Daniel Dry Gods, Simecek’s Firestone, J. E. Wolf Sr. and Cole Dry goods.
The April 2, 1958, edition of The Yorktown News reported that the parade was “conceived on the spur of the moment, with no time make elaborate plans, appoint committees or work out details….” The newspaper further reported that the success of the venture was due “…to the spontaneous and whole-hearted cooperation of local business men…” In spite of this last-minute planning, on Saturday, March 29 at 3 p.m. Yorktown welcomed a crowd that jammed the downtown sidewalks to see the parade led by the VFW Color Guard. The “Bronc Busters” (the Yorktown High School marching band), led by Mary Gail Kerlick, followed close behind. The parade featured the famous Lone Star Brewing Company Shetland Pony Hitch. This team of matched Shetlands was outfitted with ten gallon hats and six shooters and pulled a miniature covered wagon. A parade highlight was Monroe Woods’ mustang team pulling a frontier wagon carrying an ancient two-seater Chick Sale (outhouse), complete with corn cobs and a Sears catalog. The parade also included colorfully-garbed mounted groups, several floats, new tractors, trucks and automobiles, as well as the four-piece Disintegrated Brotherhood of Near Musicians. With a broom and shovel, Sparky, the rodeo clown, brought up the rear and proclaimed that Yorktown was not a one-horse town indeed.
The Yorktown News also reported that most of the western parade watchers “…hightailed it out to Les Mueller’s Smith Creek Arena…to take in the rodeo….We saw cars bumper to bumper all the way over the hill and as they wended their way into the grounds more and more kept coming….The show got underway about nine o’clock, and a thriller it was…with mean, ornery broncs and bulls, and fast elusive calves, there were plenty of spills, thrills and chills…as good a show as we’ve seen anywhere.” Rodeo events included calf roping, bareback bronc riding, bull riding, bull dogging, saddle bronc riding and the ladies’ barrel race. The performance also featured Tab Evans and his trained hog, Pork Chop and his trained dog, Wheeler.
After the success of the first parade and rodeo, the Yorktown Chamber of Commerce continued the celebration annually. In 1962 the Chamber sponsored the first Western Days royal court with Jo Ann Boone crowned as queen. For nearly two decades, M&M Rodeo Company produced a rodeo in conjunction with the Western Days celebration. Throughout the years, the rodeos featured celebrated cowboys such as Bud Humphrey, Glen Dorn, Pat Doyle, Glenn McQueen, Billy Bridges, Cotton Proctor, Sonny Berry and Phil Lyne. Working ranch cowboys from the area who rode as pick-up men included Carl Hoefling, John Horny and Lester Davis. Raymond Stoebner of Victoria served as rodeo announcer while renowned rodeo bull fighters Darrel “Sparky” Sparkman and Billy Willis entertained the crowd with clown antics while protecting the bull riders. Willis died recently in Waco at age 68.
In 1962 Mueller constructed a new arena on his ranch north of Yorktown on Highway 240 in the small community once known as Little St. Louis and the rodeos were moved from the Smith Creek arena.
In July 1963 Mueller died after a horseback riding accident during a rodeo in Cuero. However, the Western Days rodeos continued with Mueller’s widow, Cecil Olivia Gilliam Mueller and son Don, managing M&M Rodeo Company. The last rodeo they produced in Yorktown was in 1975.
Today, Western Days continues to draw parade participants from surrounding counties, as well as visitors from across the country. The thousands who come to Yorktown each year enjoy not only the Grand Parade, but live music and entertainment, chili cook-offs, various contests, shopping and the genuine fellowship of the townspeople – the spirit out of which the celebration was born 55 years ago.
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