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Saturday is National Day of the Cowboy, and the Briscoe Western Art Museum in downtown San Antonio will celebrate with its own Day of the Cowboy events.
The museum's Dawn Robinette explained that they "have been celebrating it for more than 10 years at the Briscoe. It’s an opportunity to celebrate all things cowboy, cowgirl, the vaquero, everything about Western culture and heritage, and it's all free, right on the banks of the River Walk.”
This year will also include a focus on a different kind of cowboy.
“This year, we are doing a nod to paniolos. Those are the cowboys that call Hawaii home,” Robinette explained. “And our summer exhibition 'Aloha Vaqueros' explores the influence that Mexican vaqueros had on Hawaiian cowboy culture. Without Mexican vaqueros, paniolos wouldn't exist, and the name paniolo actually comes from the word 'Español.' So we are celebrating the exhibition and celebrating those Hawaiian cowboys with an island theme for this year's National Day of the Cowboy.”
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There will be a Hawaiian Shaved Ice vehicle outside to help visitors keep cool from the forecasted 90 degree weather.
The exhibitions inside the museum are free and open to the public.
Inside or out, there will be plenty for the young and the young at heart to enjoy.
“You will have the opportunity to do arts and crafts, explore the entire museum," she added. "We will have musicians. We'll have trick ropers out there teaching you how to trick rope and lasso — I still haven't mastered that. We'll have cowboys from the San Antonio Rodeo out there doing the same thing, showing everybody some of the tricks of the trade.”
For visitors driving to the museum, there is a parking garage across Market Street.
