Bayfield Heritage Days and Sheep Trailing

Sheep on the Buck Highway

Spectators wait along the west sidewalk of Buck Highway (County Road 521). Around 9:30 a.m. the sheep come into Bayfield from the mountains by Vallecito, with herders and dogs working the edges of the flock. On September 26, 2026, the Durango Herald wrote that they “flowed down Buck Highway like a raging river,” held in by the crowd on the sidewalks and by the steeper side of the road. Some ran up the hill and were brought back by the herders and their dogs. Before the flock arrived, children stepped into the street to see it first, and volunteers and parents moved them back to the curb. Everly, Indira and Esmehre Tawnee, ages 8, 10 and 7, said they liked watching the sheep run and hearing the noises they make.

The flock belongs to La Plata County rancher and former state Rep. J. Paul Brown. Pine River Valley Heritage Society volunteer Anne Schrier gave its size as about 2,000 head, and the Herald gave the same figure in 2022. The organizers’ Sheep Trailing page says “hundreds of ewes and lambs.” After town the sheep keep going south toward the family ranch and onto winter pastures. The Pine River Heritage Hub site lists the Browns as of Ignacio, Colorado. The organizers write that “the flock is the livelihood of the Brown family.”

The organizers ask spectators to leave dogs at home or in the car, because the flock’s guard dogs treat any other dog as a threat. They also ask people to stay on the sidewalk, because “if the sheep see a funnel ahead, it will spook them.” Organizer Marian Tone calls the trailing “Bayfield’s favorite traffic jam.” In 2022 the Herald reported cars on the highway “nearly swallowed whole in a flood of white fleece,” and no driver honked. That year’s report opened with a comparison: “Spain has the Running of the Bulls, and Bayfield has the Running of the Sheep.”

Mill Street and Joe Stephenson Park

The day begins before the sheep arrive. At 8 a.m. a 5K fun run starts and finishes outside the museum on Mill Street. Its organizers ask runners to be there early “to be sure you beat the sheep,” and the proceeds go to the Bayfield 4-H Super Shooters Club. After the flock passes, the crowd walks to Mill Street for a free parade at about 10 a.m. The organizers give the start time loosely: “Sheep don’t wear watches!” Entries include community groups, local businesses, floats, tractors, marching bands and horses, and entrants are encouraged to show the valley’s agricultural history. Rain in 2026 delayed the school district’s homecoming parade, so the two were held together on Mill Street.

The 2026 day also had its first historic walking tour. Volunteers in period dress stood outside notable buildings and told their history. Chelsea Rey Ransford said the idea came from the Wolverine Wonders Homeschool Co-op curriculum. Melissa Strand, dressed as a prairie woman, stood at the Presbyterian Church, the oldest church in Bayfield. She told visitors it broke ground in April 1898 on land donated by William Bay, one of the town’s founders. Patsi Ginley and Colleen Fearney drove over from Durango for their first Heritage Day, mainly to take the tour.

The rest of the day is spent in Joe Stephenson Park. In 2026 the park had hayrides, a herding demonstration, bounce houses and local vendor booths. Vendors are asked to sell original or handcrafted goods. In 2022 the park offered free horseback rides, petting zoos, rodeo events, goose wrangling, kettle corn and frozen treats, and Smokey Bear posed for pictures with children. That evening the town set off fireworks it had bought for the Fourth of July but could not use because of a summer fire ban. “We might be a small town, but we know how to do a great firework show,” volunteer Carole McWilliams said. The 2025 lineup had the local band AGAVE, with a country line-dance session led by Saige during the band’s break.

Pam Talley of the historical society said the 2026 crowd was much larger than the one three years earlier. Ransford, who is a fifth-generation Bayfield resident, said: “It shows the new people what our history is.” Mayor Tom Au said: “It’s Bayfield’s heritage, that’s the best part.”

A proposal at the newspaper office

Before the celebration existed, Pine River Historic Preservation Society president Joanne McCoy said, sheep and cattle on the highways were something residents simply knew to watch for. Bayfield sits in the Pine River Valley, south of Vallecito Reservoir and the Weminuche Wilderness and north of Ignacio. Organizers told the Herald in 2019 that sheep had walked up to the highlands in June or July and come back down in September or October for at least 100 years. In some towns, they said, sheep are trucked into place for a trailing. The Lasater family drove their flock home this way every fall.

In 2000 Carole McWilliams worked at the newspaper and was president of the Bayfield Chamber of Commerce. The chamber and the town were looking for a fall event. “We wanted to get a fall event – just to get more of a community feeling and to get people to come to town and spend money,” she said. Geri Lasater and a friend came to the newspaper with a suggestion, which McWilliams recalled: “’Hey, we have these sheep that come through town in the fall, why don’t we do something with that?’ And that’s kind of how it started.” Lasater later described the trailing as “the real deal.” She said it can be tense, because the animals are dealing with drivers who are sometimes impatient.

In the early years the event ran over two days. On Friday night “old-timers” told stories. Saturday brought square dancers, Southern Ute dancers and a drum group, and the Bayfield community band. By 2019 the Bayfield Lions Club, the Rotary and the Heritage Society were running it, and the Friday kick-off was a dinner in the South Street gym with the Bar D Wranglers playing old West songs on fiddle, bass and acoustic guitars. The organizers’ site now describes the work as done by community volunteers. It also says: “This is not a reenactment of an historic event. This is Southwest Colorado living history.”

Lightning, fire, and sheep in the parade

The celebration has been held every year since 2000 except during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tone said, and 2025 was its 26th year. In 2002 the Missionary Ridge Fire nearly reached the grazing land in the highlands, and the event went on. One year there were no sheep at all. In 2017 the fire department stopped the trailing because of lightning in the area.

At the 20th anniversary, McWilliams named her favorite memory: the year the sheep caught up with Saturday’s parade. “They ran right through the people. There were no disasters, but …,” she said, laughing. “Sheep were all over town,” organizer Tony Schrier added. “So now the parade is after the sheep go through,” McWilliams said.

In 2010 the Lasaters handed the trailing to the Brown family. Their herd dates to 1946, when J. Paul Brown’s grandfather, Jack Brown, bought a band of sheep from Harry Hubbard. Casey Brown, J. Paul’s father, began herding them in 1970–71. J. Paul Brown, his wife Debbie and their four sons, Levi, Josh, Abe and Luke, carry it on. A display at the Pine River Valley Heritage Museum on Mill Street records the family in the sheep business for five generations.