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Cattle Drive Tradition Rustles Up Excitement Ahead Of 2021 Cheyenne Frontier Days

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (CBS4) - If you are looking for a reason to shine up your cowboy boots and dust off your ten-gallon hat, not to worry, Cheyenne Frontier Days is back for 2021. So how do you start off the summer's premier western event? With a cattle drive of course.

Katie Upton has lived in Cheyenne a long time. She says the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days cattle drive is part of Wyoming's heritage.

"It's a big part of Wyoming because we are the wild west," she said.

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(credit: CBS)

Early Sunday morning Upton and other Wyomingites gathered along the Interstate 25 frontage road in Cheyenne to see the spectacle. She says her family has been coming for many years.

"It's kind of like a family tradition."

She and her family come out every year to the same spot to wait and watch.

"This tree gets bigger so we are getting more shade every year," Upton noted.

The only year they didn't was 2020. COVID-19 canceled Frontier Days last year, but cattle prancing through town means the Wyoming tradition is officially back on. Sunday's cattle drive marks the official start of the festival. Cowboys drove nearly 200 head of steers

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(credit: CBS)

from a pasture north of Cheyenne along I-25, and through the city streets into Frontier Park.

Upton is glad the festival is back and the rest of her family couldn't be more excited.

"It's pretty cool to see how they keep all the cattle just going down the road and away from all of the people on the side," she said. "It gets the kids in the mood to go out to the rodeos."

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