Mules Rule at This Festival : Four-Day Event at Bishop Includes Parade, Rodeos, Races

There are festivals for art and music, wine and roses, that lift the spirit and enhance the culture of mankind. Then there is the Mule Days celebration.

For the 25th year, this Eastern Sierra town of 10,000 is glorifying the beast of burden. There will be four days of rodeos, races, barbecues, mule-packing contests, dances and all-round carrying-on featuring more than 500 mules from most of the Western states, plus Tennessee.

A parade Saturday will proceed for 1 hour 45 minutes without a car or truck, making it the world’s longest nonmechanized parade, according to Bishop officials. All entries will be pulled by mules or, as an alternate source of locomotion, horses.

The Mule Days celebration was born of desperation. Even with the fish biting in nearby streams, Bishop’s motel occupancy over the Memorial Day weekend used to be about 30%. So, the citizens looked around to see what their other assets might be.

The 16 pack outfitters, who take groups into the Eastern Sierra from Bishop and its environs, came up with the idea of celebrating the mule. One of the packers, Bob Tanner, said: “We probably have more mules than any other place in the country.”

Tanner and the other packers initiated and ran Mule Days until it became too big, and Bishop’s Chamber of Commerce gradually took over. For this weekend’s silver anniversary, Tanner will receive a founders’ Hall of Fame award.

Two years ago, the organizers incorporated, with Marlyn Briggs as general manager, and now run the event independently of the chamber. The underlying philosophy remains the same: Mules don’t get enough respect.

“We’ve taken out everything that would make the mules look stupid,” Tanner said.

A few dignitaries have come to Bishop to honor mules.

When he was governor of California, Ronald Reagan rode a mule with a silver saddle. That time, the parade was delayed 1 1/2 hours because Reagan was unable to fly out of Los Angeles until the fog lifted. A liquor store on Main Street sold 45 cases of beer during the wait.