Cowtown Rodeo is a working rodeo arena in Pilesgrove Township, New Jersey, that has hosted bull riding, barrel racing, and saddle bronc competitions every Saturday night from late May through September since 1955. It’s recognized as the oldest weekly professional rodeo in the United States, and it’s run by the same family that started it back in 1929.
Say “rodeo” and most people picture Texas, Wyoming, or Oklahoma. Nobody pictures the Turnpike. But get off at Exit 2, head out past the farm stands and soybean fields of Salem County, and you’ll find a 4,000-seat arena where cowboys have been getting bucked off horses for a bit of a ride for most of New Jersey, since it’s off of Exit 2 of the New Jersey Turnpike for generations. It’s one of the strangest, most genuine things you can stumble into in this state, and almost nobody outside of South Jersey seems to know it exists.
How a Livestock Auction Turned Into America’s Longest-Running Rodeo
The story starts in 1929, not with a rodeo at all, but with a livestock sale. Cowtown Rodeo was started in 1929 by Howard Harris Sr. and his son, Howard “Stoney” Harris Jr. Stoney held the first rodeo in Woodstown NJ, in conjunction with the Salem County Fair, at the original auction grounds on North Main Street. The idea was simple: liven up the county fair crowd with a Wild West-style show, see if it stuck.
It stuck, for a while. The rodeo was held annually during the County Fair until 1938. Then World War II shut everything down, and the arena sat quiet for over a decade. World War II caused the rodeo to be put on hold until 1955 when Howard “Baldy” Harris, Stoney’s son, came back from the University of Idaho carrying the 1954 National Intercollegiate All Around Rodeo Championship saddle. That homecoming is really the moment Cowtown became what it is today: not an annual fair sideshow, but a weekly institution. The Family worked together in establishing what is now known as the “oldest weekly professional rodeo in the United States.”
From a Small Ring to a 4,000-Seat Arena
Word got around fast. Cowtown Rodeo was – and is – known nationwide due to live national TV exposure in 1958 & 1959 and taped exposure nationwide in 1969 & 1970. Crowds outgrew the original setup, so the Harris family went bigger. The rodeo outgrew its original arena in 1967 when it expanded to its current 4,000 seat arena. That’s the same arena you’ll sit in today, dirt floor and all.
The family hasn’t let go of it since. Fourth generation cowboy Howard Grant Harris grew up behind the chutes and joined the ranks of the PRCA at age 17, and in 1978, Harris and his wife, Betsy, bought the rodeo and shortly afterward Harris hung up his competitive spurs to produce the rodeo full-time. More recently, the reins passed again. Howard Grant Harris recently passed the Cowtown Rodeo to the fifth generation of Harris’ when his daughter, Katy and her husband, RJ Griscom, took over in 2020. Five generations, one family, nearly a century. That’s not a marketing line, that’s just how it happened.
What Actually Happens on a Saturday Night at Cowtown
This isn’t a recreated or themed experience. It’s a sanctioned, competitive rodeo. The Cowtown Rodeo is sanctioned by the PRCA. Real cowboys show up from around the country to chase real prize money in bull riding, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback riding, tie-down roping, team roping, and barrel racing.
Two details make Cowtown stand apart from a typical rodeo stop. First, the livestock isn’t rented in from a contractor the way most rodeos do it. It raises its own livestock for the rodeo instead of working with stock contractors. That means the bucking horses bred and raised on the Harris family’s own pastureland. Cowtown Rodeo also raises much of its bucking stock — head to a Saturday rodeo and you’ll witness the bucking horse descendants from those who performed in the 1970s. You’re genuinely watching the grandkids and great-grandkids of the horses that bucked riders off decades ago.
Second, there’s a weekly title up for grabs on top of the individual event winners. In addition to awarding winners in each contest, contestants can earn the weekly title: All Around Cowboy, which goes to the highest money winner competing in two or more events each rodeo night. It turns every single Saturday into its own small championship, not just a stop on the way to somewhere bigger.
If you want to go, mark your calendar for a specific night. The event is at 7:30 on Saturday nights from late May through September.
Why a New Jersey Rodeo Gets Taken Seriously by the Pros
Cowtown isn’t a curiosity act that happens to exist in an odd location. The rodeo world itself has started formally recognizing it. Started in 1929 by Howard Harris Sr. and his son, Howard “Stoney” Harris Jr., the Cowtown Rodeo has been a staple of eastern rodeo. In 2023, that recognition became official. In 2023, the Cowtown Rodeo was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, and in 2024, it received the PRCA Small Rodeo of the Year award.
The Harris family hasn’t just stayed put in Pilesgrove, either. Cowtown Rodeo is unique in the fact that they not only have produced rodeos all over the East Coast, from Rutland, Vermont, to Raleigh, North Carolina, but also raise most of their bucking stock. At the time of their Hall of Fame induction, they have produced over 1500 rodeos.
The Land Behind the Rodeo Isn’t Going Anywhere
One thing that makes Cowtown feel different from a lot of “unusual attraction” stops is that it sits on real working farmland, and that land was almost lost to development. Cowtown’s owners and advocates, helped by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, preserved 375 acres of pastureland that surrounds Cowtown, land that’s been under constant pressure from developers. The family still pastures its own animals there. The Harris family pastures 100 rodeo horses and 300 to 500 cattle, and they’d retain ownership under the agreement. Without that deal, there’s a decent chance a subdivision sits there instead of a rodeo arena.
Is Cowtown Rodeo Really the Oldest in the Country?
Cowtown makes the claim loudly and proudly, and it’s technically accurate with an asterisk. It’s the oldest weekly professional rodeo, not the oldest rodeo overall. Other rodeos, like Colorado’s Deer Trail Rodeo, predate it by decades as an annual event, but none of them have run on a weekly schedule for as long as Cowtown has. It is one of only two ongoing weekly sanctioned rodeos in America. That’s the distinction worth remembering: not the oldest rodeo, period, but the longest unbroken weekly run anywhere in the country.
Planning Your Visit
Cowtown runs seasonally, not year-round, so timing matters. The season typically kicks off around Memorial Day weekend and wraps at the end of September, with rodeo action every single Saturday night in between. It sits in Pilesgrove Township, right next to Woodstown in Salem County, close enough to the Delaware border that you can feel the landscape shift from strip malls to actual farms on the drive in.
Bring cash for concessions, wear something you don’t mind getting a little dusty, and don’t expect a polished theme-park version of the Old West. This is a working rodeo with real risk for the competitors and real history behind the chutes. For a state best known for diners, boardwalks, and highway exits, that’s exactly what makes it worth the drive.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
