Wickenburg, Arizona

Wickenburg is a town primarily located in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, with a portion in neighboring Yavapai County. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,363.

History

The Wickenburg area with much of the Southwest became part of the United States by the 1848 treaty that ended the Mexican-American War. The first extensive survey was conducted by Gila Rangers who were pursuing hostile Indians who had raided the Butterfield Overland Mail route and attacked miners at Gila City.

In 1862, a gold strike on the Colorado River near present-day Yuma brought American prospectors, who searched for minerals throughout central Arizona. Many of the geographic landmarks now bear the names of these pioneers, including the Weaver Mountains, named after mountain man Pauline Weaver, and Peeples Valley, named after a settler.

A German named Henry Wickenburg was one of the first prospectors. His efforts were rewarded with the discovery of the Vulture Mine, from which more than $30 million worth of gold has been dug.

Rancho Rio de los Americanos

Rancho Rio de los Americanos was a 35,521-acre (143.75 km²) Mexican land grant in present-day Sacramento County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to William Leidesdorff (1810–1848). The grant takes its name from Río de los Americanos, the name of the American River during the Mexican-rule era. The grant originally consisted of 8 square leagues and extended from the eastern border of John Sutter's New Helvetia (east of Sacramento) 4 leagues along the south bank of the American River, to the eastern end of present day Folsom, and included present-day cities of Rancho Cordova and Folsom.

History

William Alexander Leidesdorff, U.S. Vice Consul at the Port of San Francisco, hired a farm manager and financed construction of four adobe dwellings on the site of today's River Bend Park, near Bradshaw Road and Folsom Blvd, in the city of Rancho Cordova. Leidesdorff died suddenly three years later, on May 18, 1848, at the age of 38. He was not married and had no family in California. He died intestate, leaving a large estate of property at the dawn of the California Gold Rush.

Team roping

Team roping also known as heading and heeling is a rodeo event that features a steer (typically a Corriente) and two mounted riders. The first roper is referred to as the "header", the person who ropes the front of the steer, usually around the horns, but it is also legal for the rope to go around the neck, or go around one horn and the nose resulting in what they call a "half head". Once the steer is caught by one of the three legal head catches, the header must dally (wrap the rope around the rubber covered saddle horn) and use his horse to turn the steer to the left. The second is the "heeler", who ropes the steer by its hind feet after the "header" has turned the steer, with a five second penalty assessed to the end time if only one leg is caught. Team roping is the only rodeo event where men and women compete equally together in professionally sanctioned competition, in both single-gender or mixed-gender teams.

Origins

Cowboys originally developed this technique on working ranches when it was necessary to capture and restrain a full-grown animal that was too large to handle by a single man. Over the years as the sport has grown a numbering system was added to rate each ropers individual talent level. the numbers go from one to nine (1-9) for headers and one to ten (1-10) for heelers. Using these numbers a handicap systems (the subtraction of time) has been developed to even the competition. Today there are tens of thousands of amateur ropers who compete for millions of dollars in prize money.