GENERAL HISTORY On January 2, 1494, during his second voyage to the Americas, Christopher Columbus brought a small number of Spanish (or possibly North African) cattle to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Subsequent importations increased their numbers and permitted the Spanish to expand their ranching operations to Cuba and other nearby islands. The cattle prospered on these tropical islands and their numbers increased rapidly. During Cortez conquest of Mexico some years later descendants of these cattle were taken to the Mexican coastal region of Tamaulipas. In the harsh coastal marshes they began to evolve, largely through natural selection, into a hardy, range-adapted Criollo type quite distinct from cattle of the same ancestry that were moved farther inland onto the plateau country of northern and central Mexico.
As Spanish missions were established in what would in
time become Texas, herds of these hardy coastal Criollos were driven north to
stock mission owned, and later privately owned, ranches. By 1690 the coastal
Criollos were grazing along the Sabine River that now forms Texas' border with
Louisiana. But in Central and South Texas all was not well. Increasing Indian
raids and the tendency of range cattle to head off into the brush 
were
rapidly swelling the numbers of feral cattle in La Brasada--the Brush Country
between the Nueces River and the Rio Bravo del Norte (the Rio Grande). Here, on
a calcium-rich former sea bed, natural selection rather than human preference
took control. The Spanish ganaderos (stockmen) had preferred solid-colored
cattle, with black being the most prized. Although solid colors still
predominated among the feral herds, the full range of bovine coloration soon
could be seen. The calcium-rich grasses of La Brasada also stimulated rapid bone
and horn growth, resulting in larger-framed, longer-horned cattle. By the time
that English- speakers began pouring into Texas during the early decades of the
19th century a definite longhorn "type" had become established. Though
some of these settlers brought cattle of British and other types with them, most
were oxen and so couldn't breed. Tick-born "Texas Fever" soon killed
off many of these non-Spanish cattle. The longhorns had run feral there for so
long that they had developed an immunity to the fever, and had learned to deal
with the cougars, bobcats, jaguars, wolves, coyotes, bears, and poisonous and
spiked plants of the region. The hardiness and availability of such large
numbers of feral cattle that were free for the taking made the importation of
Eastern cattle largely pointless during the early period of Anglo settlement.
When the Civil War broke out in the early 1860's great numbers of Texas men went off to fight for the Confederacy. They returned home in defeat in 1865 only to discover that the Cotton Kingdom that had been the backbone of Texas early prosperity was in ruins and the Comanches and Kiowas had rolled the frontier line back eastward a hundred miles. Their homes were often burned, their families scattered, and their herds stolen or strayed. Texas only hope for ready cash to rebuild on lay in the millions of feral cattle that roamed La Brasada. The horsemen plunged south into the brush-covered prairies using all the skills they had learned from their Mexican vaquero teachers. Herds were trailed to Louisiana, Illinois, and even New York, but they failed to produce profits. And then the railroad reached Abilene, Kansas.
A part-Cherokee merchant named Jesse Chisholm had pioneered a trail from Texas north across the Oklahoma Indian Territory. A road to markets lay open for those willing to risk it. Once more the cowboys of Texas charged their Spanish Mustang cow ponies into the Brush Country and began rounding up great herds of the longhorned cattle. They pointed them toward the North Star and rode off into legends. They also created a taste for beef in the American palate that has never slackened. At first only six and seven year old steers walked the trails north, but with the end of the Indian Wars and the slaughter of the plains bison a market for longhorned breeding stock opened up in the far ranges of Wyoming and Montana. Cows, heifers, and bulls were driven 2000 miles to form the basis of the Western Cattle Industry. Upwards of 10 million longhorns, some clain 40 million, walked the trails in that brief but blazing time of glory.
The early success of these longhorned Criollo cattle was also to be their downfall. As railroads ended the need for trail-hardy cattle, and barbed wire fenced the ranges, ranchers turned to the bigger British breeds to increase their profits. Using first Shorthorn, then Hereford and other bulls on their longhorn cows, the old longhorn blood was steadily bred out of most of the West's herds. These early Cattle Barons knew nothing of genetics, and they failed to realize that as the percentage of longhorn blood decreased in their herds, so did fertility, disease and parasite resistance, calving ease, early maturity, and high calf survival rates. There was no one to tell them that the maximum heterosis is always on the first cross. Many of them went from boom to bust in short order. Captain Richard King left his name on a great ranch, but he used Shorthorn bulls to breed the longhorn blood out of his vast herds, and he died $400,000 in debt.
A few cattlemen did recognize the genetic strength and hardiness of these old longhorned Criollo cattle and held onto them. In 1927 the Federal government allocated $3000 for Heck Schrader to form a small herd of longhorns on the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Cache, Oklahoma. The herd quickly became inbred, and longhorn rancher Graves Peeler said that it carried a lot of Brahma blood, as well. To remedy this, Trans-Pecos rancher I.G. "Cap" Yates began sending pureblood bulls from his large herds up to the Refuge at regular intervals. The WR herd prospered.
Farther south, E.H. Marks had assembled a herd of longhorns on his Barker, Texas, ranch, and M.P. Wright, Jr., who ran a slaughter house near Corpus Christi, began holding back any longhorns that came his way and so built up a large herd of his own. On the prairies below Houston Milby Butler ran both longhorns and Brahmas. Graves Peeler built up a fine herd in Live Oak County. Grady Woods maintained the last known East Texas-type longhorns on his land near Newton. Cap Yates' herds out in Texas' Trans-Pecos Country remained the largest and the most free of influence from other breeds. Jack Phillips, Esteban Garcia, Russell Stanger, John Webster, Sam and Oscar Jourdan, Fausto Guerra, the Melgaards, Winslow Brothers, Wm. Doughty, Frank Dew, Seth Brown, and a few others also ran longhorns at one time or another. Though the number of longhorned Criollos that survived into the middle of the 20th century was small, and some of the herds carried blood from other breeds of cattle, there was enough remaining genetic distance to rebuild the hardiness and fertility that had allowed these longhorns to become the salvation of a destitute Texas and feed a hungry nation a hundred years before.
And then in 1964 Charlie III Schreiner, patriarch of the great YO Ranch in Texas' Hill Country, pointed the herds north again when he established an association to maintain pedigrees and inspect for purity among registered Longhorns. This is also when "Texas Longhorn" became capitalized as a name; it was now a recognized breed. As is so common among human affairs, though, the members of this early association soon fell to fighting and the breeders split into the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America and the International Texas Longhorn Association. Traditional breeders tired of this constant combat and in 1990 formed the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry to protect the pureblood cattle and to avoid all internal politics.
Since the mid-1970's the cattle themselves have been drifting into two somewhat distinct "types" -- the Show Longhorns bred for the show ring and prize money, and the Range Longhorns bred for low-overhead beef production. This Web site is dedicated to the Range Texas Longhorns--hardy, sometimes handsome, sometimes butt-ugly, easy-keeping, low-overhead, hyper-fertile, disease and parasite resistant, absolutely fascinating old-timey cattle. Increasing numbers of ranchers are discovering that as mama cows or heifer bulls, Range Longhorns put extra money in their pockets. In hard times like these, the Range Longhorns will stick with ranchers when other breeds just give up. And since these cattle have not been redesigned for the standards of the show ring, they remain the most environmentally adapted cattle in America.
I hope that you enjoy your visit to this site, but beware, Range Longhorns can be addictive. Many people have fallen helplessly in love with them. I hope that you do, too.