Photos: Fort Worth's most famous rodeo says goodbye to historic Will Rogers Coliseum

FORT WORTH — After 76 years, it’s the last go-round for the rodeo at the historic Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum on Saturday night.

Like a broken-in hat or well-worn boot, the coliseum for decades has brought comfort and coziness to families who’ve stepped back in time whenever they attended the rodeo.

But come the end of this year’s Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, the rodeo portion of the popular event departs for the newly built Dickies Arena nearby.

Organizers say they’ll take some of the coliseum’s old-time visual traditions with them: the footprint of the arena floor, box seats, the "standing on the wall" walkway behind the box seats, the single diamond bucking chutes and the red, white and blue bunting.

History permeates the coliseum, built in 1936. Old rodeo photos and murals line its horseshoe-­shaped hall-way.

The old ticket booth is still intact, sitting across from the Haltom's Fine Jewelers clock. The rodeo-­themed, hand-­painted murals hang above the vomitory stairwells. Several coats of white paint partially hide hand-carved names and ranch brands on the bucking chutes' wood posts.

The rodeo made Will Rogers its home in 1944. It is retiring from the coliseum like other notable events once housed there. The Fort Worth Golden Gloves boxing tournament, the Fort Worth Kennel Club show, the Miss Texas Pageant, the Ice Capades, the Rolling Stones, roller derbies and several hockey teams all used the coliseum throughout the decades.

In recent years, the 5,700­-seat coliseum has modernized, adding a four-sided video board with an additional board on each end of the arena. A live band has given way to recorded music and special effects.

The event may be moving to the 14,000-­seat Dickies Arena (the facility will be reconfigured to 9,300 seats during the rodeo), but the rodeo -- a Fort Worth tradition no matter where it's staged -- will still feature all of the cherished sights and sounds, including the muffled scuff of boot heels dragging the floor, bulls clanging in the chutes, Junior League members bellowing "Programs!" and rodeo announcer Bob Tallman's familiar deep baritone.