Columbiana hosts 17th annual Cowboy Day celebration

Published 5:52 pm Wednesday, February 26, 2025

By Noah Wortham

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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – One of Columbiana’s longest running community events rode back into town on Saturday, Feb. 22 as children and residents joined together for Old West festivities at Cowboy Day.

The city of Columbiana hosted its 17th annual Cowboy Day celebration on Friday, Feb. 21 and Saturday Feb. 22 with a rodeo, vendors and plenty of wild west activities for visitors to enjoy.

“Everybody said they had a lot of fun,” said Ali Payne, manager of community affairs and senior services in Columbiana. “All the kids seemed to have a lot of fun as well, so it seemed to have been a pretty good day.”

Despite the cold weather, residents turned up en masse to enjoy the event’s food trucks, artisan vendors, demonstrations, skits and parade. This year’s Cowboy Day saw 12 food trucks set up in Old Mill Square alongside 40 vendors.

With the crowds that came to Columbiana for the festivities, businesses on Main Street and around the city benefitted from the influx of new customers

“Anytime you have that many people in town, that really means that they are spending money, they’re visiting restaurants, they’re going to the shops downtown and shopping,” Payne said. “That is important to Columbiana and is a good source of revenue for the city.”

Alongside all of the event’s vendors, visitors were also able to enjoy a series of free activities. Hank Simpson entertained families with a forging demonstration at the Shelby County Arts Council amphitheater.

“It’s always intriguing to watch that whole process,” Payne said. “It’s pretty amazing.”

The western troupe, Have Gun Will Travel, returned to Cowboy Day for their 17th year and brought the Old West to life with shootouts, skits, a cowboy camp and traveled about the square immersing residents in the old ways of living.

“They always do a great job,” Payne said. “They are a great group of men and women. They have been doing this for a really thing time—for 17 years—as long as we’ve been doing Cowboy Day. And they absolutely love it. They do several skits in the park and then the big shootout right before the parade on Main Street and that’s always fun to watch.”

While attendees walked about the square perusing vendors and eating underneath the pavilion, Leah Slaughter and Daniel Bowden delivered entertaining live music performances.

Children flocked to the green space at Old Mill Square at 11 a.m. to participate in the Hobby Horse Races where they competed with one another to get through the race course. This year’s installment of the tradition saw 50 kids, ages 2-12, compete.

“That is always a lot of fun,” Payne said. “It is pretty comical to watch. It’s hilarious.”

Columbiana’s Cowboy Day first began in 2008 as a way to promote the Shelby County Cattlemen’s Rodeo and has continued to grow into a staple event for the city.

“Cowboy Day is really one of the best family-friendly events in Shelby County,” Payne said. “There is something about kids and animals and cowboys and getting to use your imagination and be something else for the day. It’s not something that kids get to do often anymore and so, I think it’s extra special that they get to pretend to be a cowboy or cowgirl for the day.”

With this year’s installment of Cowboy Day complete, the city of Columbiana looks forward to February 2026 for the 18th annual Cowboy Day celebration.

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