Traveling with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for more than a decade, Vicente Oropeza was a master of trick roping as practiced by the charro culture in Mexico.
McCracken Research Library Reference Assistant, Nathan Bender, said he was known for his roping skills and other displays of horsemanship.
“He would not only do simple rope the front leg, rope the hind leg of the horse, but he would also spell out letters of the alphabet with his rope in the air. He had such mastery of the way it looped and twirled that he could make flowers in the air with his rope,” he said.
Bender says entertainer Will Rogers credits Oropeza with introducing trick roping to North America. He said Rogers first watched him perform during the Chicago World Exposition in 1893.
“And when he saw Oropeza perform it really showed him the potential of what could be done in terms of performing and using that as an art with live performances,” he said.
Trick roping competitions later became a big part of rodeo culture in America. Oropeza was inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1975.
