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The Rodeo Heritage Museum in Dublin, Texas is having their major fundraiser of the year on November 19th at 6:00 pm at the Dublin High School Cafeteria. The program consists of singer David Bridwell, a Celebration dinner, an auction and special biographical films of this year’s honorees. Honorees this year include Fred & Joe Fletcher (longtime Dublin business leaders and Dublin Rodeo Board of Directors), Ralph Collier (a legendary rodeo cowboy who competed in the Dublin Rodeo and many more rodeos across the nation, the extraordinary Tom Rogers (an Erath County historian whose parents were photographers of Dublin history during the long-ago Dublin Rodeo days) and a special tribute to Johnny Duncan (a renowned country and western singer from Dublin who sang at the Dublin Rodeo).

This museum is about a man named Everett Colborn that came to the Dublin Area in 1937 to establish the Lightning C Ranch (the largest ranch dedicated to rodeo stock in the world at that time). He calls his rodeo company "The World's Championship Rodeo". He drives his stock 14 miles on horseback into the Dublin Stock Yards and loads them on a 24-car train to Madison Square Garden NY, Boston and other rodeos throughout the United States.

The Dublin citizens saw this and went to the Lightning C Ranch to ask Colborn about producing a Dublin Rodeo. By 1940 Dublin had it first rodeo where Gene Autry attended. That same year 20th Century Fox come with a movie crew to film a movie newsreel. They film the round up on the ranch, then drove into the Dublin stockyards and loaded the rodeo train.

By 1942 Gene Autry became partners and came to Dublin at different times. But the biggest shows were Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden and the Houston rodeos where special guests were Roy Rogers, Annie Oakley, Rin Tin Tin, Lone Ranger and other TV stars.

Everett Colborn retired in 1960 so Gene Autry moved the rodeo company to Colorado. We celebrate the years 1937-1959 when a huge professional rodeo was headquartered in Dublin, Texas. The museum started with hundreds of photos of Everett Colborn's rodeo career.