These are the people who helped make America. They forged the trails that opened up the West. They herded the cattle that fed railroad camps and pioneer settlements. They roamed the open range, sleeping under the stars.

Where would America be without cowboys? Their place in the nation’s psyche is woven into the fabric of every pair of jeans, every Stetson, every pair of cowboy boots. A thousand Hollywood Westerns bolstered the legend, enshrining something of the cowboy spirit deep within every American.

The heyday of the cowboys was remarkably short. The first of the epic cattle drives took place in the 1860s. Just 30 years later, the open range had been subdivided into ranches cordoned by barbed-wire fences. Cattle were moved to market by train and, later, by truck.

But many of the traditions of the early cowboys survived. Not least, the rodeo — or round-up — which began as a method for stock owners to identify their own cattle, separating them from those belonging to other owners. By law, every ranch was obliged to hold an annual rodeo. Cowboys from across the region were employed in the task. It was a rare opportunity to throw off the solitude of the trail and to measure hard-earned skills against those of rival cowboys.

By the 1870s, traveling fairs began to incorporate elements of the rodeo, including calf lassoing, horse breaking and bull riding, for public entertainment. This was a less lonesome way for a cowboy to earn a living. Some chose to migrate across America from one fairground rodeo to the next

Others stayed on the ranches. Many are there still, maintaining traditions that run like a backbone through American history. Out in the wilderness, nothing changed. Beyond sight of any town, cowboys continue to ride their remote routes under the pall of dust stirred by bovine hooves.

The rodeos also survived, though they moved with the times. From Dec. 6–15, the annual National Finals Rodeo — the Super Bowl for professional cowboys — will be held. For many years, the event was staged in Oklahoma City, but in 1984 it was effectively hijacked — lock, stock and barrel — by Las Vegas, where it has been held ever since.

It is an odd, even uncomfortable, juxtaposition: America’s glitziest city coupled with a tradition rooted deep in the backcountry. For 10 days each year, the country comes to town. Horses and livestock are trucked along the city highways to the Thomas & Mack Center. Even the soil for the arena — a combination of sand and clay known as “special dirt” — is brought in specially.

This is rodeo with lasers, theatrical smoke and thumping music. For animal lovers, there is something unsettling about calves being roped for the amusement of a cheering crowd. Campaigners uncovered disturbing evidence of animal cruelty during some rodeo events, including horses being given electric shocks immediately before entering the rodeo ring in order to provide more of a show.

It is true: 21st-century America is a place of many tastes, and not everyone appreciates the modern incarnation of rodeo. But its lineage reaches to simpler places and a purer time. If you block out the razzmatazz and focus purely on the cowboys — and cowgirls — testing their skills against proud animals, the distance is not as great as you might imagine.

The nocturnal neon wonderland of Las Vegas gives way in every direction to velvet darkness. Out there, you can still bathe in the crackling warmth of a campfire and gaze up at glittering stars. The land of the cowboys is all around us.