Texas Longhorn Steer - Dead or Alive

The Texas Longhorn is a lean beef animal descended from hardy Spanish cattle. It can thrive in country where other breeds cannot live, but other breeds were preferred by modern ranchers. The longhorn breed dwindled but was saved from extinction by enthusiasts. Longhorns are valued today for their hardiness, survival instincts, and link to Texas history.

The first postcard (circa 1942) shows "Old Tex," said to be the best known specimen of Texas Longhorn who roamed Southwest Texas to an undetermined age and was mounted and displayed at the Buckhorn Curio Store Museum in San Antonio, Texas. His horns measure over 8 feet tip to tip.

The second postcard shows a live Texas Longhorn, said to the "the only Texas Longhorn steer in the Southwest," at the New Mexico Museum of the Old West on Highway 66, 48 miles east of Albuquerque and 70 miles west of Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The description on the back is as follows:

These half-wild Leghorn [sic] cattle were the only kind known in the early Southwest. The hardy critters are descended from Andulasian [sic] cattle brought from Spain by Gregorio Villalobos in 1521 and ranged over the entire plains county until the early 1900's. Today there are only a few of these old Longhorns left, and they soon may become extinct. The picturesque animal shown here was purchased from the U. S. government and is privately owned by Capt. and Mrs. Bill Ehret of The Longhorn Ranch.

This post was written for
A Canadian Family
A Festival of Postcards Blog Carnival
5th Edition, October 2009: Quadrupeds