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The Autry’s first-ever celebration of National Day of the Cowboy and Cowgirl drew thousands of fans eager to spend a sunny day experiencing all things cowboy.

Gunslinging entertainer Joey Dillon (Photo by Tessie Borden)

And the littlest cowboys and cowgirls seemed to have the most fun, between the leatherbraiding workshop, panning for “gold” on the sluices, or learning trick roping from the experts.

“I do it over my head, and when I throw it, I aim at the target, and it goes on the target,” said Ethan Albert, 5, who was there with his grandmother, Jan Brady. “I love it.”

Ethan says he’s been doing this for about six months. The target, by the way, was a plastic steer form with horns and cowhide thrown over it. Not a bucking bronco, but you have to start somewhere.

The National Day of the Cowboy has been observed since 2005, when the U.S. Senate passed a

Ethan Albert, right, learns to rope from a member of the Bañuelos Charro Team (Photo by Tessie Borden)

resolution and President George W. Bush wrote an official letter supporting the designation of such a day. The late Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming) had pushed for the resolution and read the letter that July 23 to an eager crowd during Cheyenne’s Frontier Days celebration.

Since then, the National Day of the Cowboy Organization has been conducting a campaign to garner support from state governors and local governments to permanently designate the last Saturday in July as National Day of the Cowboy. Read about it here.

However, this weekend was the first time the Autry tried to put on its own National Day of the Cowboy. At the festival, you couldn’t walk 15 feet without seeing a new and different attraction.

On the main stage in the plaza, the Bañuelos Charro Team demonstrated roping tricks and taught kids to lasso a steer, and every one of them did so — even if Ramón Bañuelos had to lead their rope all the way to the horns.

Irene Bañuelos sat nearby with her children, Ramón, 8, Fatima, 6,  and Juan Pablo, 5, while they

John Krambeer with a very serious student of the lassoing arts (Photo by Tessie Borden)

watched Daddy at work.

“They’ve been watching the show, playing with the ropes,” she said in Spanish. “They don’t have much practice, but they like it . . . . Every time we’re invited to an event, the kids always want to come.”

But the lassoing expertise was not restricted to the folks on the stage. Off on one corner of the plaza, Autry trustee John Krambeer showed the smallest li’l wranglers their way around a rope, getting some help from his son Tyler.

In the Gathering Circle, there was a chuck wagon demonstration, and blacksmiths showed their stuff making horseshoes and iron hooks and never once wilting in the heat even though they stood next to a barrel of red-hot coals. On the lawn, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Posse was there, horses and all.

Heritage Court's Main Street Marketplace (Photo by Tessie Borden)

Christopher and Cathie Burkhardt had been looking at the cowboy stamp exhibit in the lobby of the museum. But what they really wanted to see was the loot downstairs at Heritage Court in the Main Street Marketplace, which was abuzz with collectors and fans of Americana perusing hats, belts, boots, clothing, Western art, even cowboy furniture.

“We want to see all the vendors and see who’s showing what,” Christopher said. “We want to look the silver and all the collectibles.”

The Museum Store had hot sauce tastings with Cowboy Chef Layne Wooten. Near Trails West, there was a leatherworking demonstration, and outside, both kids and adults tried their hand at

The Tumbling Tumbleweeds sing, while Gene Autry himself "accompanies" on the guitar (Photo by Tessie Borden)

the goldpanning. Museum teachers were there with their activity carts, giving kids in kindergarten through first grade a hands-on sense of what life in the West was like with props such as chaps, horsehair ropes, leather gloves and spurs.

“A cowboy of the 1800s did not have the things a cowboy today has,” said Edith Dourisboure, one of the museum teachers. “What we try to do is introduce the children into a working cowboy’s life. We have the things in here that you would have used in the 1800s.”

There was also barbeque, performances by the Tumbling Tumbleweeds, and entertainer-

gunslinger Joey Dillon, who dazzled folks with his gun-juggling act. And in front of the museum,

visitors mugged for the camera in front of rodeo-tailor-to-the-stars Nudie Cohn‘s famous fancy car, decked out with six-guns and a longhorn rack on the grill.

Altogether, 2,266 people visited on Saturday, and it had to be some kind of record.

Given the popularity of this most cowboy of holidays, it’s just about certain that, come next July, the museum will be gearing up for its Second Annual National Day of the Cowboy celebration.

To see Joey Dillon in action, see below.

For the Bañuelos Charro Team action video, see below.