It's a Wrap! 2015 Rocky Mountain Select Sale and Winchester Futurity  
via Facebook.com/rmss2015

Rocky Mountain Select Sale RESULTS
via Facebook.com/rmss2015

THE RESULTS ARE IN . . . and it's all good, thanks to this year's consignors, sponsors, buyers and crew ("backstage" coverage courtesy of Mendy Gonzales). Strong trends year over year too, as is evidenced here:

Overall average: $2,901 on 76 head (up 40% over '14)

Cows: $3,311 on 33 head (+40%)
2013 Heifers: $2,959 on 17 head (+17%)
2014 Heifers: $2,500 on 26 head (+59%)

Altus AFB hosts annual Longhorn cattle drive

 

Time warp at High Noon Parade

Longhorns lead the way at the Western Legends High Noon Parade. 

By Jennifer M. Latzke  via High Plains / Midwest Ag Journal

Jeff Farrell/Outpost Creative Inc.

Just as the sun breaks over the horizon on a quiet foggy morning in Dodge City, Kansas, the first Longhorn steer stepped down from the open-topped gooseneck cattle trailer. Disembarking like a rock star coming out of a tour bus, his hooves clattered on the cement parking lot, the only sound announcing he and his band of bovine celebrities had arrived.

 

A few cowboys, mounted on horseback, stood by like an entourage of handlers while the big steer with his gently curving horns confidently led the rest of his bovine band up the sloping ramp and onto the front lawn of the Boot Hill Museum. A handful of spectators with cameras clicked away like paparazzi as the herd made its way to the grassy lawn. There the steers would graze and wait for the main event, tuning up like a group of rockers in a green room just before taking the main stage.

 

The second annual Wild West Heritage Foundation Cattle Drive, Aug. 1, was only hours away, and the first trailer load of 110 Longhorn steers had arrived at the staging area.

 

But it was tough to say who was the bigger celebrity draw-the Longhorn steers or the Celebrity Marshals, Buck Taylor and Johnny Crawford. Fans of the golden age of TV westerns remember Taylor as star of CBS's "Gunsmoke" and Crawford as the young son on "The Rifleman." Both returned for this second year of the Cattle Drive, in conjunction with the annual Dodge City Days celebrations.

 

Taylor has a particular spot in his heart for Dodge City, the real-life setting for the fictional show "Gunsmoke," which launched his television and movie career, along with so many others in its 20-year run.

 

"Dodge City is the legendary cow town of the West," he said. "If there hadn't been a Dodge City, there wouldn't have been a 'Gunsmoke.' Without that, I wouldn't have been on 'Gunsmoke' and standing here now."

Dodge City has its own mystique as a location that so many have only heard about through film and television. And while its history is firmly rooted in cattle drives and cowboys of the Old West, it also has a very real modern tie to the cattle industry of today. Two large packing plants call Dodge City home, as do many feedlots in the region. A major component of this cattle drive was to promote the cattle industry of today as well as the cowboy heritage of the past to tourists and locals alike.

 

"The reason I'm here is trying to help promote tourism and to keep the cowboy culture alive," Taylor continued. "People come from all over the world to see Dodge City-it's still the Queen of the Cowtowns. Even today, there are a lot of cattle brought here every day, and they feed this country and the rest of the world."

 

Taylor and Crawford agreed that sharing the heritage of the Old West with future generations is how we preserve and keep the culture alive.

 

"My passion is trying to preserve and keep it, along with the cowboys here working these cattle," Taylor said. "The cowboy is still alive here in America and in this part of the country. And that's something that's purely American. We can't count a lot of things as ours, but that is one."

 

The Chain Ranch and Wes Sander of Woodward, Oklahoma, provided the Longhorns for the cattle drive. Sander started training Longhorns for cattle drives as a public relations stunt for the Elks Rodeo in Woodward in 1997.

 

"I grew up in the Seiling, Canton area and then moved to Woodward and became part of the Woodward Elks Rodeo Committee," he said. "As chairman, I was always looking for a way to better promote our rodeo. We were kind of unsuccessful with previous drives. We just wound up stampeding cattle through Woodward."

 

But then, in the summer of 1997, Sanders heard about a group of 44 Longhorn steers for sale at a sale barn in the Texas Panhandle.

 

"They were at the end of their trail, and by the by were going to slaughter," Sander said. "But they were a magnificent set of steers." Sander wound up buying them, and they made their first appearance that summer at the Woodward rodeo.

 

"We drove them from our ranch about 10 miles outside of Woodward, downtown, to the Woodward rodeo grounds," he said. That was the start of a hobby side business that's grown over the past eight years.

 

Since then, Sander and his crew of cowboys have added to the herd and have taken Longhorns all over the country for Western cattle drives, product launches and even a few movies. Some of these Longhorns even made the trek to Detroit a few years back to introduce the new Dodge Ram pickup model during the Detroit Auto Show in 2008, Sander said.

 

"We loaded up 120 Longhorns in four semis and five 1-ton pickups in January for that car show," Sander said. Typically, transportation of the celebrity steers calls for a little extra room for their horns. Sander said the little steers with smaller horns can fit up to 40 or so on a cattle pot. Larger steers with larger horns mean fewer to a trailer.

 

Sander said training the steers to trail is pretty straightforward. Each summer he and his cowboys start the herd of Longhorns on the 10-mile drive from the ranch near Woodward to the Woodward rodeo grounds. After they appear at the rodeo, the herd is driven back the 10 miles. After 20 miles, Sander said, those steers that don't figure out the routine and don't act right on the route will find themselves on another route-to the sale barn.

 

"For a bovine, they really have a lucky life," Sander said. "They eat grass, get on a truck, walk down a street and get back on a truck. If they behave themselves, they get a great life. If not, they get the gate."

 

Those that learn the routine, though, go on to long and happy lives with the rock star treatment on the family's ranch. Five of those original Longhorns Sander bought are still living in the herd. Typically, they can live 15 to 20 years before their knees and joints give out under the weight of their magnificent horns, he added.

 

With the last of the 110 Longhorns unloaded at the staging area at Boot Hill, and the fog burned off, Sander and the cowboys-working and Hollywood stars alike-mount up to begin the cattle drive.

 

The crack of a bullwhip, followed by the national anthem and the posting of the flag signal the beginning of the show. The gates open, and the Longhorns take their marks before their fans.

 

Taylor and Crawford lead the way, mounted on horseback. Taylor waves to the crowd and smiles through his bushy handlebar moustache, while Crawford performs rope tricks from his saddle. Estimates are that up and down the 1.16-mile route there await 26,000 spectators, a number that's grown since last year.

 

Longhorns make their way down Wyatt Earp Boulevard.  (Journal photo by Kylene Scott.)

The first steer past the Boot Hill archway is an older veteran, with his impressive horns stretching the length of a man. You can hear the crowd take a collective breath.

 

The lead steer ambles along, followed by his band mates. The younger steers follow the older steers' leads, much like their ancestors did a hundred years ago, on another cattle drive down this same route in Dodge City. Except back then, the route wasn't lined with fast food restaurants, traffic signs and fans.

 

Still, it's a sight to behold. And the clicks and whirrs of cell phones and cameras held by the public lined up along the route are a testament to these gentle Longhorns' status.

 

After all, it's Dodge City, and the Longhorns are the stars of this show.

 

Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached at 620-227-1807 or jlatzke@hpj.com

 

Trail drives, an epic chapter in Texas history

From 1779 to 1781, Longhorn cattle from South Texas missions were driven across the swamps of Louisiana to feed the army of Bernardo de Galvez, who mounted a campaign against the British to assist the American Revolution.

Historic photo of a cattle drive in Seguin, Texas. Image courtesy of E. John Gesick, Jr.  photo: thestoryoftexas.com

This was a prelude to the great cattle drives that began after the war. Returning Confederate soldiers were broke, few jobs were available and money was scarce. However, the ranges of South Texas were teeming with half-wild Longhorns that had proliferated during four years of war and neglect. They were chased down, branded and walked to market.

Small herds went north to eastern Kansas in 1866, but the drovers ran into trouble from Jayhawkers and Redlegs. When the railroad reached Abilene in western Kansas, where herds could be sold and shipped to the stockyards of St. Louis and Chicago, drovers turned in that direction and eventually to other Kansas railhead towns.

Some 75,000 head of cattle went up the trail in 1867. The herds grew larger every year thereafter. In 1869, 600,000 cattle went north and the greatest drive in history was made in 1871 when 700,000 head went north from Texas.

With the first signs of spring, Texas cattlemen began rounding up herds for the drive, which would take three to four months. They wanted to get to Kansas before winter. Herds were moved up the Texas, Western and Chisholm Trails. Besides trail hands, there was a trail boss, horse wrangler and cook. The hands were paid $30 to $40 a month based on experience.

Cattle were driven hard at the beginning of a drive to rush them away from their familiar home ranges. After a herd was trail broken, it averaged 10 to 12 miles a day. In the morning, the cattle would graze in the direction of the drive and in the afternoons cowboys moved them along at a faster pace. They would reach bedding ground at sundown.

Historic photo of a Longhorn herd near Deanville, Texas. photo: thestoryoftexas.com

When they moved away from the well-beaten trails, looking for grass and water, drovers followed the stars. At night the tongue of the chuck wagon would be pointed toward the North Star and next morning the drive would take that direction.

The chuck wagon carried food and cooking utensils. The bed wagon, also called the hoodlum wagon, carried extra saddles, branding irons and bedrolls.

With a herd making 10 to 12 miles a day, cowboys could ride along dozing in the saddle. The top hand rode point. On either side near the front were swing riders, near the rear were flank riders, and at the rear were drag riders. Cowboys worked long hours, ate beans, drank Arbuckle's coffee, and sometimes were rewarded with a raisin dessert called spotted dog or son of a bitch in a sack. At night they played poker, told tall tales, and slept on a blanket with their saddle for a pillow.

It was dangerous when there were flooded rivers or when the herd stampeded. Personal accounts of the trail days can be found in the "Trail Drivers of Texas."

"We took the river route," one wrote, "since we must have crossed every d*$% river in the country." Worse than crossing a river on the rise was a stampede. Thomas Welder of Beeville said his herd pulled "a big show" 10 nights in a row. Cattle would run for any reason--a sudden noise, the flare of a match-- but they often ran in a storm. A flash of lightning and crack of thunder and off they went, running like race horses.

A cowboy from San Antonio wrote that in one violent electrical storm he could see lightning on the brim of his hat and the tips of his horse's ears. Cowboys killed on the trail were rolled up in their blankets and buried with a grave mound shaped over them. One cowboy wrote that the saddest sight he had ever seen was a mound of fresh earth topped with a pair of old cowboy boots.

Cowboys grew excited as they left Indian Territory and crossed into Kansas. On reaching the outskirts of the typical Kansas cow towns (Newton, Hays, Wichita, Abilene or Dodge City) herds were held outside town until buyers looked them over. After they were sold, the Longhorns would be shipped on railroad cars to eastern slaughter houses.

Once in town, as a matter of policy, Texas trail hands did not always behave at a high level. After they were paid they would take a bath with lilac soap, get their hair cut, buy a rig of fancy clothes, and get ready to cut a shine.

One described his arrival in Dodge City. "I went to a barber shop, got my face beautified, put on some new clothes, and went forth to see the sights in the toughest town on the map. At the first saloon, a girl came up, put her hand under my chin, and said, "Oh, you pretty Texas boy, buy me a drink.'"

After a big time in one of the cow towns, some of the cowboys traveled home by railroad and then by steamboat. Others sometimes rode over the same trail, nursing hangovers and telling each other of their experiences on the way up. Riding home on the trail, they said, saved money for the bartender.

One cowboy, after he graduated from his first trail drive, said he would never forget the feel of the saddle, the heavy pull of weight of a six-shooter on his belt, or what a blessing on a rainy night was that yellow slicker they called "fish."

After resting up in the winter, many cowboys would be ready to take the trail again the next spring. That is, until times changed and the coming of railroads, wire fences, shorthorns, and the man with the hoe put an end to that epic chapter in Texas history.

Murphy Givens is the retired Viewpoints editor of the Caller-Times. Email him at givens.murphy@gmail.com.

AUGUST 18, 2015 BY SALINAPOST.com

 

CLICK HERE for the e-Drover archives

Have you missed an e-Drover issue?

If you missed an article or needed to find the ad for sellers of high quality Longhorns, you can always check the archives of the e-Drover. 

Just CLICK HERE to access past issues of the e-Drover.