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National Rodeo Hall of Fame
Inducted in 1978
Paddy Ryan
EVENTS
World’s Champion Cowboy, 1924
Winner of the Roosevelt Trophy, 1924
Red-haired, freckle-faced John Francis “Paddy” Ryan, born in 1896 in Minnesota, came west with his family to a Montana homestead in 1910. The young man learned to wrangle horses on a nearby ranch and entered professional rodeo in 1916 at Miles City. After a tour in the army during World War I, Ryan returned to Montana and to rodeo.
An unbeatable all-around cowboy, Paddy Ryan specialized in bronc riding but consistently won in all events from 1924 to 1928. In 1924 he claimed the coveted Roosevelt Trophy, awarded to the man who earned the all-around titles at Pendleton and Cheyenne. This feat, amassing the most cumulative points among the bronc-riding, steer-roping, bulldogging, and wild horse-racing events, was equal to a world championship for that era.
A colorful character, Ryan bulldogged wearing a silk shirt and a necktie, and he often wore a full suit of clothes while riding a bronc. While working for Leonard Stroud’s Congress of Cowboys, he ‘dogged steers from the running board of a car. Paddy Ryan retired to his Montana ranch in 1946 and died in 1980.
EVENTS
World’s Champion Cowboy, 1924
Winner of the Roosevelt Trophy, 1924
Red-haired, freckle-faced John Francis “Paddy” Ryan, born in 1896 in Minnesota, came west with his family to a Montana homestead in 1910. The young man learned to wrangle horses on a nearby ranch and entered professional rodeo in 1916 at Miles City. After a tour in the army during World War I, Ryan returned to Montana and to rodeo.
An unbeatable all-around cowboy, Paddy Ryan specialized in bronc riding but consistently won in all events from 1924 to 1928. In 1924 he claimed the coveted Roosevelt Trophy, awarded to the man who earned the all-around titles at Pendleton and Cheyenne. This feat, amassing the most cumulative points among the bronc-riding, steer-roping, bulldogging, and wild horse-racing events, was equal to a world championship for that era.
A colorful character, Ryan bulldogged wearing a silk shirt and a necktie, and he often wore a full suit of clothes while riding a bronc. While working for Leonard Stroud’s Congress of Cowboys, he ‘dogged steers from the running board of a car. Paddy Ryan retired to his Montana ranch in 1946 and died in 1980.
