Historical Legend Jesse Stahl Bareback Rider

WHEN HE WAS DENIED 1ST PLACE HE STUNNED CROWD & RODEO PRODUCERS

Jesse Stahl 1879-1938

Jesse Stahl was born in Tennessee in 1883. Little is known about his early years but he and his brother Ambrose began competing in Rodeos in the early 1900s.

Stahl started with steers and bulls where he won several competitions, but it was when he and another black cowboy, Ty Stokes, rode a bucking horse back to back in what was called “a suicide ride” that he found his true event.

Considered one of the greatest bronc riders ever, he never was awarded the top prizes in that event. It is widely believed that due to his color and the bias of rodeo promoters he was seldom awarded first place.

Stahl never failed to out-ride and out-show his competition. In one particular instance, he placed second in a competition that he clearly should have won outright. In a daring and deliberate move, he rode out on a wild bucking horse that had never been ridden.

The ride was magnificent and made a mockery of the judges because Stahl broke the horse called “Glass Eye” while riding it backward!

“Although he began roping the year Stahl died, my father Rufus Green, Sr. considered Stahl one of the great black cowboys of his time. It is a shame that he was never given the recognition he deserved when he was living. Just like with my father’s profile in ‘Western Legends: Yesterday & Today…African Americans 1798 to 2009’, I am pleased that people who have never heard of him will learn his history by reading or hearing these stories at Wild West Diversity,” said Dr. Rufus Green, Jr.

Although he retired in 1929 and settled in California, most rodeo enthusiasts consider Stahl the greatest of all bronc riders.

In 1979, he was the second African American inducted into the National Western Heritage and Cowboy Museum Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City following his contemporary and rodeo pal Bill Pickett.