Charlie Columbus McNally founded The original Mesquite Rodeo, which was a permanent location and did not move from town to town. It was held at the Charlie McNally's Arena which was located on Hickory Tree Road, a little to the north of present Rodeo Drive. The original Mesquite Rodeo dates from about 1946 but was preceded by the Pleasant Mound Rodeo which began in 1941, also started by Charlie McNally and is where Neal Gay got his start in 1945. It was located on the northeast corner of Buckner Boulevard and Scyene Road. Ironically, it was closed when the City of Dallas annexed Pleasant Mound in 1950 and refused to issue a special zoning permit to the rodeo. Shortly thereafter Neal Gay,
Jim Shoulders, Ira Akers and their associates purchased C.C. McNally's property in 1957. They built a new arena on the south side of the property on the north side of present Rodeo Drive for the 1958 opening of the professional, soon to be renamed, Mesquite Championship Rodeo. The entrance was still on Hickory Tree Road and passed north of the open arena (the roof was added in 1964) to a parking area on the west side. The brick kilns were just a few hundred feet southeast of the arena. The present arena was built in 1986 further south of the 1958 arena on the site of one of the clay pits. Rodeo Drive and Neal Gay Drive were constructed about the same time. The 1958 arena was torn down and the site remains undeveloped. The Mesquite Championship Rodeo was televised on
ESPN from 1981 to 1986, and from 1986 to 1999 on
TNN. In the 2000s, it was televised on
Fox Sports Networks. It reached over 8.3 million households, to date, the most televised rodeo in the world next to the NHSRA 20X Rodeo High telecast on
RFD-TV. Since 2020, the Mesquite Championship Rodeo is televised live on
The Cowboy Channel and streamed live on the paywall-subscription-based
Cowboy Channel+ app. In 2015, the Mesquite Championship Rodeo was sold to Stace Smith Pro Rodeo. The facility has hosted U.S. Presidents
Ronald Reagan and
George W. Bush, as well as
Prince Rainier III of
Monaco. ==References==