EVENTS
Steer Roper, Champion, 1942
A consistent rodeo roper for three decades, King Merritt was born at Calhoun, Georgia, in 1894. As a youth he cowboyed on various Texas ranches prior to starting his rodeo career in 1918 with C. B. Irwin’s Wild West Show.
Although he competed in calf roping and steer wrestling, King Merritt specialized in steer roping or “fairgrounding.” A friend and competitor of Bob Crosby, Merritt captured the steer-jerking title at Pendleton in 1925 and 1935 and garnered the world championship in 1942. Merritt established the “Laramie Plains Steer Roping” in 1948, an event that still attracts the best.
In later years, King Merritt parlayed his rodeo winnings into a fine Hereford cattle ranch at Federal, Wyoming. A good judge of ranch horses, he was a founding member of the American Quarter Horse Association. King Merritt died in 1953.
