Eddie Grantier honored as last rodeo club Charter member

"We just liked rodeo. We didn't have no place to ride, so we built it," Eddie Grantier said while sitting in the shade near the Lincoln Rodeo Grounds snack bar during the rodeo Sunday, July 3.

In 1952, the newly chartered Lincoln Rodeo Club hosted its first rodeo on Labor Day on property a couple miles west of Lincoln leased to them by Gilbert Zimbleman.

Just 17 years-old at the time, Eddie was a young bareback rider and one of the club's 22 or so first members. Today, he is the last surviving charter member of the club and was honored at this year's 70th annual Lincoln Rodeo.

Eddie had shared some of his memories of the early days of the club during the first day of the rodeo. After a long hot day Saturday, Eddies visit to the rodeo Sunday was unexpected and low key.

Looking back, Grantier believes the old rodeos, which depended on local ranch stock rather than contractors, were better than they are now.

"We just got everybody's horses rounded up and used them, or their calves or whatever. We done it ourselves," he said. Although the main local ranches are basically the same as they were 70 years ago, there aren't a lot of local outfitters left and Grantier said ranches just used more horses then.

"Each ranch had a bunch of horses. We got stock that way," he said. "That petered out as they got more mechanized."

Although he felt the rodeos were better using local stock, he doesn't feel bringing the stock contractors in was much of a change. Prizes have changed a bit over the years though. A winning ride for Eddie at the Choteau Rodeo earned him the prize of 10 quarts of oil.

The early rodeo grounds were also a rougher affair than they are now. "It's nothin' like it is now, with all the woven wire and fancy stuff," Eddie said. The original arena was built using posts and poles cut on Dalton Mountain. Since everyone worked during the day, he said they did a lot of the cutting in the evening and at night, often using the headlights of cars to illuminate the work.

"It was interesting," he said. "I remember one time Pinky Smith, he was one of the members, we went up into woods up Dalton cutting poles and stuff. He hit a rock with his car and knocked the oil pan off, losing oil. He says, 'we'll go 'til she blows.' Well, we didn't go very far."

The Rodeo Club may have formed in 1952, but rodeos had been a part of the fabric of Lincoln for years before. Eddie recalled that the first rodeo grounds were located at Hooper Park, occupying the site of the current west ball field and Lincoln Skate Park. Before they had a fence, they would use vehicles to create an arena.

"My Dad was in that organization, or whatever it was then," he said. "They didn't have chutes. They crowded them up behind the gate and turned 'em loose. Then they built some chutes there. They had three or four chutes."

Although Zimbleman leased the current rodeo grounds to the club for 99 years, the Rodeo club eventually bought the property outright.