Horn Texas

Texas Longhorns

The ancestors of the Texas Longhorn came over with Christopher Columbus’s second voyage in 1493.They have been established whereever conquistadors planted the red-and-yellow banner designs of Spain.

Physical Characteristics of your Longhorn

Texas was created by Spain in the early eighteenth century, largely to be a buffer against French encroachments into the east. San Antonio was founded in 1718, but Texas remained very remote, isolated from different Spanish colonies, and really sparsely settled. As late when the 1830s, there are probably less than around 3,000 Hispanics by the province. With little human interference, Longhorns grew semi-wild, adjusting to themselves to the harsh plains environment.

Natural selection produced a bigger, healthier animal, accustomed to hardship and equipped with long, sharp horns to fend off predators. Indeed, the foremost prominent feature of the animal was which is its horns, gracefully curved spikes that could reach enormous lengths.

There have been claims of 11 foot horns, but these are pretty much in the realm of legend and tall tales. Probably the animal with the longest recorded horns was the aptly named “Champion,” who “reigned” across the turn of the century. He enjoyed celebrity status for a couple of years, his picture gracing medallions throughout Texas. He was exhibited for the San Antonio Fair in 1899, though a year or two later he disappears from history. Champion boasted horns which are nearly nine feet long—8 feet, 7 and 3/8th inches from tip to tip, with a circumference of each and every horn at the base approximately 17 and 7/8ths inches.

The “Long Drives” along with the Golden Age of many Longhorn

The years implementing the Civil War could be considered the “Golden Age” of those Longhorn. The defeated South lay prostrate, and Texas shared within the misery. But the victorious North had a growing population and needed beef, something that the Lone Star State had in abundance. Thus began the fabled Long Drives, the herding of longhorn cattle countless miles north into the railheads in Kansas and Missouri. The same name “longhorn” evokes images of such drives, so celebrated in books, movies, and television: large masses of animals plodding in the trail, great clouds of dust billowing up behind them. It also recalls images of many classic cowboy, six gun strapped to his hip, rope along at the ready, singing to his charges as they simply bed down of the night.

The Long Drives only lasted around 20 years. When railroads became more prominent, there arised you do not drive cattle 1,000 miles or more. Ranching began more sophisticated in a few respects. Because of the late 1870s barbed wire fences closed off of the open range. Also, the longhorn was lean and produced relatively “tough” meat, not less than by today’s standards. Ranchers sought to improve herds by introducing new varieties of cattle noted for their meat, breeds such as the English Hereford.

Longhorns remain, now they may be largely relics of your colorful past. They may be part and parcel of many legendary Old West.

Sources:

T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A background of Texas as well as the Texans (Da Capo, 2000)

N/A, Story of your Great American West (Reader’s Digest, 1977)

Van Horn, Texas to Guadalupe Mountains National Park