Heritage Backro

Raise your hand if you’re not fond of snakes. I saw the advertisement on Facebook for the Oglesby Lion’s Club Rattlesnake Roundup for a couple of weeks before I mentioned it to David because, well, snakes…

Finally, a day or two before it, I told him about it and he was very excited because, well, snakes…

The weekend came and I was actually looking forward to it because it had been so darn cold for a couple of weeks. I was just happy to get outside.

We didn’t expect much because Oglesby (located about ½ hour from Waco) is a town of a whole 444 people. The event was easy to find as soon as we drove in. We saw food trucks and lots of tops of white tents. We easily found parking in the field right next to everything. 

We almost got sidetracked immediately with the petting zoo – the goats were adorable. They must have thought we were, too, because they came over to see us as we walked by. 

We then started hitting the vendors to quickly check them out before the first show I wanted to see.

There was a surprising number of vendors with a surprising variety of items – outdoor décor, boots, hats, baked goods, and off course, there were snakeskin items such as wallets and snake rattles. 

At 10:00 we went to see the dancing by the North Star Cloggers out of Grapevine, Texas. It was my first time ever seeing this kind of clogging and I absolutely loved it! We stayed for the whole one-hour show. They talked a little bit about the history of clogging and said that it pre-dates tap dance and is a “melting pot” of different styles of dance from different cultures. The style these performers used was the Appalachian Standard Traditional Clogging.

After the show, we started talking to locals to ask about the history of this little event. We learned it began in 1969 as a fundraiser for the Lion’s Club. Members went to the little town of Walnut Springs, which also hosts a rattlesnake roundup event, to find out how they did it. Then they came back to Oglesby and started it, and it has now been held every year except for one year during Covid.

We decided we wanted to check out the one restaurant in town, Johnny’s Café, which is surrounded by the event. The restaurant was crazy busy, and we were informed there were no seats unless we wanted to sit at the “community table” which was a large table with eight chairs. That was fine with us, so we sat, and as other locals and out-of-towners joined us we had a wonderful conversation.

Then it was time for the rattlesnake show. When we walked out of the restaurant we were surprised by the number of people everywhere. Attendance had really picked up while we were eating.

We should have gone to the show earlier if we had wanted a seat. The little arena was packed, with standing room only. Thankfully the snakes were behind a plexiglass half-wall. We watched as a man was lying in a sleeping bag with snakes and then slowly got out. No, thank you, I won’t be trying that! Then the final act had a man with a blown-up balloon in his mouth moving towards a snake to get the snake to strike at the balloon and pop it. That was a lot of fun to watch, and the conversations in the audience were really fun to hear and adults enjoyed it just as much as the kids. 

The rattlesnake show was offered several times during the day so there were ample opportunities for visitors to see it. 

For such a small town as Oglesby, the Rattlesnake Roundup was quite the popular event, drawing visitors from miles away. By the time we left the parking lot where we had found easy parking, it was completely full, and so was the field across the street.

From the number of people attending, it’s easy to see that the event has maintained its popularity for 55 years and will continue into the future. 

The Oglesby Rattlesnake Roundup occurs the fourth weekend of February so put February 21-22, 2026, on your calendar to check it out next year – and we’ll make sure to remind you!