Beyond Burnt Orange
School mascots aside (more later on those Longhorns), the Texas Longhorns come in a variety of colors and patterns. You'll find brown, black, white, yellow, red, speckles, stripes, patches, and solids. Except perhaps for the solid ones, no two Longhorns look alike.
The Longesthorn
Of course the most striking and instantly recognizable feature of the Texas Longhorn is the horns. Whether straight, perfectly curved, twisted or askew, there is as much variety in the horns as in the hides. Typically, the most prized cattle are those with the longest horns, with spreads of over seven feet recorded.
Legendary Longhorns
Kingly in appearance, some of the greatest Texas Longhorn Herd Sires of All Time have names to match, such as Texas Ranger J.P., Impressive, King, and my personal favorite, Cowcatcher. But perhaps the most famous Longhorn outside of the cattleraising community is BEVO, mascot for the University of Texas Longhorns.
Legend says that back in 1916, either in retaliation over a humiliating loss to UT or in an act of pre-game bravado, Texas A&M branded a Texas Longhorn (steer not football player) with 13-0, the score of a previous A&M victory. In a perfect example of turning lemons to lemonade, UT rebranded the Longhorn. 13 became B. The hyphen became an E. A V was added then the zero remained as O. BEVO was born. Over the years a series of loaned steers have done the honors as official mascot for the UT Longhorns.
A Short Longhorn History
Although historians sometimes disagree, it is typically acknowledged that long-horned Spanish cattle arriving with Christopher Columbus, were the first cattle to set hoof in the New World. Later breeds from England and Spain joined them and from this mix came the legendary Texas Longhorn.
Prior to the Civil War millions of longhorns lived in the United States. This was the era of the great cattle drives from Texas to Kansas. By the early twentieth century the introduction of other breeds from Asia and Europe almost wiped out the purebred Texas Longhorns. In 1927, with fewer than thirty Longhorns remaining, the US government took steps to keep the Longhorn legacy alive with the formation of the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. Today Texas Longhorns number over 250,000.
If you haven't yet gotten your fill of bovine trivia, don't miss MidMichigander Lori Holuta's fun feature "In Celebration of Cows."
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