Longhorns

All horns and no beef, the Texas Longhorn is as much a part of the mystique of the “Old West,” as the cowboy and his Colt Peacemaker.

Ancestors of the both the California and Texas Longhorns can be traced back to the marshes of Andalusia in Southern Spain and the wooded region of Extramadura in Western Spain.

These Andalusians were of the same lineage that produced the large black bulls of the Spanish and Latin-American bull rings.

They can be divided into three groups from the Andalusian areas; Retinta, a solid red, brown to tan colored animal; Black Andalusian, a solid black animal; and Berrenda, a white cow with black markings. The familiar high tail and narrow head of the Longhorn were also characteristic.

The people who lived in these regions sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second journey to the new world in 1493. These settlers brought with them these Andalusian cattle. They settled in the four island chain of the Antilles (Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, and Puerto Rico). The cattle roamed freely and became semi-wild, giving birth to calves with a spotted or speckled color pattern, which is typical of untamed animals.

In 1519, many of the Antilles settlers left for Mexico in search of gold and other rumored treasure, bringing cattle with them.

In 1521, Don Gregorio de Villalobos was sent as viceroy to “New Spain” and brought a number of calves from Santo Domingo to the Pánuco River valley near what is today Tampico, Mexico. The stock raisers in Hispaniola, afraid they would lose their monopoly for the supply of horses and cattle to the Spanish settlements, instituted severe restrictions on the delivery of brood stock to Mexico.

In 1690 the first herd of 200 Spanish cattle were driven north into what is now Texas, for the missions Spain had established there. The cattle were rugged, sharp-horned animals that ran thick in the brush country of South Texas and into New Mexico and Arizona.

By the time the first Anglo-Saxon American settlers reached Texas, the woods were full of cattle. They were called Criollo, or “Cattle of the country”.

The Texas longhorn is generally thought to have been created as a cross between this criollo stock and the English cattle brought to Texas in 1820’s and 1830’s by these first settlers. The wild black cattle eventually mixed with these strains and the result was the hybrid breed known as the Texas Longhorn.

Though, some historians disagree. These Andalusian cattle were immune to a disease referred to as “Spanish Fever,” “Texas Fever,” or “Cattle Tick Fever.” This disease, spread by a tick that longhorns often carried, was often fatal in other cattle. Therefore it is unlikely that no more than minor inbreeding occurred as most settlers kept their cattle close, away from the wild longhorns.

The longhorn had long legs and a long, limber tail, and he came in just about every color of the rainbow, perhaps most often some hue of red, brown or yellow, but there were also brindles, “gruyas” (grullas, mouse-colored), duns, blacks, whites, creams and every possible combination. An animal splotched with different colors was called a paint, and one with a line stripe down his back, which the old Texans often called a lobo (wolf) stripe.

Hardy, aggressive and adaptable, the Texas Longhorns were well suited to harshness of the ranges of the southwestern United States.

Longhorn cattle have a strong survival instinct and can find food and shelter during times of rough weather. Longhorn calves are very tough and can stand up sooner after birth and other breeds.

Running wild for nearly two hundred years had made the longhorn tough and hardy enough to withstand blizzards, droughts, dust storms, attacks by other animals, and Indians. They did not require great amounts of water to survive. Their horns served for attack and defense. A strong sense of smell made it easy to for the cow to find her calf and she would ferociously defend this calf.

There was probably no meaner creature in Texas than a Longhorn bull. The slightest provocation would turn him into an aggressive and dangerous enemy. The bull’s horns usually measured over eight feet long. In addition, the sharpness of horns of any length, the speed and muscle power of the bull, and the ease with which he could be aroused and enraged, made him a dangerous and uncontrollable animal. When two bulls met, there was sure to be a fight, often to the death. And only a very well-armed cowboy had a chance against a Longhorn bull.

Regardless of their color, Longhorns could run like deer, swim like a seal, and fight like a mountain lion; and to help them they had the most fantastic horns ever to grace the head of any bovine. Though probably the average spread wasn’t more than 4-5 feet, there were many that went 6-7 feet. For the most part the horns arched forward more or less, but they might grow in any fashion, like the handlebars of a bicycle, or with curve on curve, or even one horn up and one down.

At about the age of four or five, when the Longhorn was considered to be getting its full growth, though they did keep putting on weight for years longer, little wrinkles would begin to grow up from the bases of the horns. The older the steer got, the more the wrinkles would show, giving rise the term “mossy horns,” meaning old-timers. A full-grown young steer would weigh 800-900 pounds, while a fat old mossy horn might go as high as 1500 or more.

When gold was discovered in California in 1848, and miners demanded beef, some of the first cattle drives on record took place, driving approximately 100,000 head of cattle west to California. After the Civil War, cattlemen of the Southwest discovered that you could drive a full-grown Texas Longhorn north and he’d put on weight grazing northern grass.

Eventually Shorthorn and Hereford stock were introduced to the Southwest to improve the beef quality, and Brahma cattle to produce animals more resistant to tick fever. The true Longhorn began to disappear. In 1920 funds were made available from Congress to save them. Forrest Service employees Will C. Barnes and John Hatton, armed with descriptions of the Longhorn “type”, inspected over 30,000 head of Texas cattle and assembled a herd of 20 cows, 3 bulls, 3 steers, and 4 calves. In 1927 the animals were shipped to the Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve.

These survivors became the foundation stock for a herd dedicated to preserving these great animals for posterity.





Sources:

Foster-Harris, William. The Look of the Old West, New York, Skyhorse Publishing Inc., 2007

Texas Longhorn Survivor of the Past-Bright Promise for the Future, by Dr. Stewart h Fowler, PhD
http://www.anisiokstate.edu/breeds/cattle/texaslonghorn/

Texas State Historical Association-A Digital Gateway to Texas History, The handbook of Texas Online, Longhorn Cattle
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/at102

Texas Longhorns: A history of Longhorn Cattle
http://dfwnetmall.com/e-mag/longhorn.htm

Texas Longhorn Cattle-History of the Breed
http://www.rogerslonghorns.com/

California Association of Texas Longhorn Breeders, History of Longhorns in California, by Michael Casey
http://www.catl.com/histCA.html

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, History of the Texas Longhorns
http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/oklahoma/wichitamountains/longhornhist.html

Photos Courtesy of Dickinson Cattle Co.