The Rodeo Heritage Museum honors the spirited men and women who shaped rodeo and lived the western way of life. It spotlights the 1930s-1950s era when the Pre-World Championship Rodeo was held in Dublin. From 1937 to 1959, the stock for the World Championship Rodeo were raised on Everett Colborn's 14,000-acre Lightning C Ranch near Dublin. Beginning in 1940, after the cattle and horses were rounded up and driven fourteen miles from the ranch to the Dublin City Park Arena, the Pre-World Championship Rodeo was born. In 1946 the city fathers of Dublin opened the Colborn Bowl, an impressive new arena that was home to the Dublin Rodeo until the close of operations in 1959. Cowboys and cowgirls from across the country came to participate in the "world championship" event, and then headed for the Dublin train depot where they boarded the Santa Fe Rodeo Train, along with the livestock. Colborn's World Championship Rodeo Company than "rode the rails" to Madison Square Garden and many other venues across the country, bringing world championship caliber rodeo to the lives of many Americans. The Rodeo Heritage Museum preserves and promotes this rich western heritage.