When the federal government marked his tribe for termination, Osceola came up with the idea of creating a rodeo as a tourist attraction to raise funds.

The rodeo earned enough money to pay for tribal representatives to lobby against termination and formally organize as a tribe.

[1] Bill Osceola was born 30 June 1919 in the Everglades in Broward County, Florida to Jimmy and Mary Motlow-Osceola.

[3] In 1943, a young pastor, Stanley Smith, arrived on the Dania Reservation to assist the Southern Baptist Church leadership.

[6] To earn a living, Bill raised cattle (around 300 head) on the Big Cypress Reservation[3] and was a heavy equipment operator.

[9] From 1–2 March 1954 designated tribal members testified at a Joint Hearing before the Subcommittees of the Committees on Interior and Insular Affairs of the 83rd Congress.

[9] Lacking the necessary funds to make repeated trips to Washington, DC and Tallahassee, Florida to argue their case, in 1956, Osceola came up with a plan to build a rodeo arena on the Dania Reservation as a tourist attraction.