It’s time to celebrate the legacy of the West – the cowgirls, the cowboys, and vaqueros at the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s National Day of the Cowboy celebration Saturday, July 27, 10a.m. – 4p.m. at the museum’s campus on the banks of the River Walk. (Briscoe Western Art Museum, 2024)

This free community event includes free admission to the museum and its exhibitions, as well as indoor and outdoor activities. This year’s event tips its hat to the role cowgirls play in the West while showcasing cowboy life, skills, art, and more. Cowboys and girls of all ages can enjoy live music, games, crafts, a chuck wagon with tasty cowboy treats straight from the trail, artist demonstrations, and hands-on fun. Pre-register in advance to enjoy the free Western fun.

One of the Briscoe’s most treasured annual events, National Day of the Cowboy highlights and preserves America’s cowboy culture and pioneer heritage. The day began in 2005 to celebrate and preserve the heritage of the American cowboy, cowgirl, and vaquero in the United States. The state of Texas declared it a day of honor in 2015 and the Briscoe annually hosts a free community day marking the occasion, throwing open the doors of the museum to honor the cowgirl, cowboy, and vaquero in us all.

The museum’s National Day of the Cowboy Celebration includes:

• Free event and museum admission and activities for the whole family, including the museum’s 14 galleries and the McNutt Sculpture Garden.
• Cowpoke games and crafts, where you can create your own cowboy hat and spurs, play horseshoes, make your own stick pony and try your hand at barrel racing. All arts and crafts are free and supplies are provided.
• Cowboy music with The Barditch Hippies, playing live in the museum’s McNutt Sculpture Garden, where the fantastic bronze sculptures and lush, shady greenery are the perfect backdrop for cowboy fun.
• Authentic chuck wagon cooking with free samples of peach cobbler, along with food truck grub and tasty barbeque available from Cake ‘n Que to satisfy any hungry cowpokes.
• Demonstrations of how to craft the essential tools of the cowboy trade by members of the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association.
• Lassos and fun with local rodeo cowboys and the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo and watch roper Cowboy Doug dazzle and delight with roping demonstrations.
• Western art brought to life through live demonstrations:
  • Watch acclaimed, award-winning cowgirl artist Mary Ross Buchholz demonstrate illustration techniques using charcoal to create realistic imagery, sharing how to artfully capture Western scenes.
  • Enjoy a live sculpting demonstration by Jason Scull, one of the Cowboy Artists of America working to authentically preserve the culture of Western life through fine art.
  • See Texas cowboy artist Mike Capron showcase how he authentically portrays ranching and cowboy scenes.
• Special appearances by Miss Rodeo Texas 2024, Ashlyn Williams, San Antonio River Walk Princess Annette Flores and Marina the Turtle, visiting to remind everyone “stuff the boat” to support this year’s Communities In Schools supply drive. Bring school supplies to National Day of the Cowboy and help Marina stuff the boat to benefit local children.
• A display of escaramuza attire – what the talented women who participate in charreadas wear as they perform – and a local rider answering questions about what it’s like to be an escaramuza.
• Storyteller Antoinette Lakey bringing the story of Mary Fields, the first African American woman stagecoach driver, to life. For many years, Fields traveled the West with her pet eagle, never losing a single horse or package. Hear her story as Lakey reads from “Fearless Mary: Mary Fields, American Stagecoach Driver.” A community leader, researcher, and dramatist, Antoinette Lakey currently serves as Artistic Director for Teatro Anansi, an organization with a mission to connect, celebrate and commemorate African American theatre, performing arts and history within the greater San Antonio community.
• Cowboy poetry with poet Don Mathis, sharing his original poetry about the National Day of the Cowboy.
• A look back at what it was like to be a trail rider and a black cowboy with a storyteller dressed in period attire, sharing about life in the West in 1875.
• Nature’s beauty and resilience on display during the museum’s summer exhibition, Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four, Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The exhibition’s title references Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which had a revolutionary impact on how people from Western cultures envisioned our relationship with the other animals on Earth. A special mini-drawing lab also offers step-by-step instructions to draw animals and landscapes.

Briscoe Western Art Museum: Preserving and presenting the art, history and culture of the American West through engaging exhibitions, educational programs and public events reflective of the region’s rich traditions and shared heritage, the Briscoe Western Art Museum is located on the San Antonio River Walk at 210 W. Market Street in the beautifully restored 1930s former San Antonio Public Library building. Named in honor of the late Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. and his wife, Janey Slaughter Briscoe, the museum includes the three-story Jack Guenther Pavilion, used for event rentals and programs, and the outdoor McNutt Sculpture Garden.