Bishop Mule Days facts for kids
Bishop Mule Days is a big yearly festival in Bishop, California. It celebrates the amazing mule! This exciting event lasts for six days, leading up to Memorial Day weekend.
Hundreds of mules take part in over 180 different contests. There's also a huge parade, which is the biggest in the United States without any cars or trucks! The festival started small in 1969. Now, it's Bishop's largest event, bringing in up to 30,000 people. Many call it "The Granddaddy of Them All" among mule shows.
A famous announcer named Bob Tallman has been a part of Bishop Mule Days for over 20 years. The festival also includes an arts and crafts show. Plus, there's a country and western music concert. For example, the band Lonestar performed in 2010. Country star Jerrod Niemann was a featured performer in 2013.
In 2020, the festival was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then held again in 2021.
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The Big Parade
The yearly Bishop Mule Days parade happens on the Saturday morning before Memorial Day. The parade route goes north through downtown Bishop on U.S. Route 395.
What You'll See in the Parade
No cars or trucks are allowed in this parade. All entries must be on foot, or use mules or horses. In 2010, there were 110 different groups in the parade. This included 18 mule pack strings. These came from private companies and government groups. Some government groups were the United States Forest Service and the National Park Service. The United States Marine Corps also had a group from their Mountain Warfare Training Center.
Many old mule-drawn and horse-drawn wagons also join the parade. Most groups are from California. But in 2010, groups came from Idaho, Nevada, Iowa, Arizona, Oregon, and Utah too.
Famous people have been Grand Marshals of the parade. These include Ronald Reagan and Norman Livermore.
A Special 50th Anniversary
In 2019, Bishop Mule Days celebrated its 50th anniversary. For this special event, a twenty-mule team pulled copies of old borax wagons. These wagons were built over several years in Montana. They looked exactly like the original wagons. The original wagons are on display in Death Valley, California.
Exciting Competitions
The competitive events at Bishop Mule Days happen over six days. They take place at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Bishop.
Types of Events
There are many different kinds of contests. Some events include barrel racing and calf roping. There's also steer stopping and cow penning. Other events are flat racing and carriage driving. Activities also range from packing mules to dressage. Dressage is like ballet for horses and mules. There are also team chariot races and mule shoeing contests. In 2010, there were almost 220 different classes of competition.
The Pack Scramble
The packing scramble is a very special event. It's unique to Bishop Mule Days.
How the Scramble Works
Mule pack strings enter the arena. Then, their loads are taken off, and they are untied. Rodeo cowboys then make the herd run around. They even fire blank gunshots! It's described as a "wild and wooly spectacular." More than one hundred horses and mules run loose in the arena.
Teams of professional backcountry packers compete against each other. They want to win bragging rights. Each team must find its own mules from the running herd. Then, they have to pack them correctly. After that, they race to the finish line. Spectators cheer and shout during the event. The winning team is the first one to get its pack string back together. They must reload it and lead it out of the arena.
