Tex Austin

John Van "Tex" Austin (1886 – 26 October 1938) was an American rodeo promoter, known as the "King of the Rodeo" or "Daddy of the Rodeo" because of his efforts to popularize the rodeo outside of its core American West demographic.

He owned the Forked Lightning Ranch in New Mexico. From 1925 to 1929, he was promoter, manager, and director of the Chicago Roundup.

Austin's birth name, in St. Louis, Missouri, was Clarence Van Nostrand. In 1908, he left St. Louis and adopted a new persona, changing his name (and usually was called Tex Austin) and saying that he was raised on a cattle ranch in Victoria, Texas. He worked at the L.F.D. Ranch in Roswell, New Mexico and then at a ranch at Las Vegas, New Mexico.

He claimed to have worked for Don Luis Terrazas, the Chihuahua cattle baron of the Creel-Terrazas Family. In 1910, he was a captain under Francisco Villa in Madero's revolutionary forces against Diaz.

His first produced rodeo was in El Paso, Texas. In 1918 in Wichita, Kansas, he produced the first indoor rodeo.