Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1916-05-25


College, carried off $3.50 in cash prizes at the
National Breeders and Feeders Show and i'm
mediately thereafter sold under the hammer at
2O4 cents pound, live weight bringing $l75.
This youngster, that weighed S75 pounds on
his first birthday anniversary, marked transit
ton in Oklahoma cattle breeding as swift and
startling as the transformation of the sweeping
prairie ranges of quarter of a century ago to
the hustling cities and alfalfa green farms of
the present. There centuries of breeding
history crowded under the hide of that yearling,
but SO far Oklahoma is concerned, he repre-
scented human generation in time re-
moved from the Long Horn of the cattle trails.
four-y r-od Long Horn" steer, loaded down
with Texas fever ticks and stranger to corn or
cottonseed, would have weighed little more than
this yearling. He would have sold, on the hoof,
for Just about one-seventh of the price per pound
He wouldn't have won any blue ribbons unless it
was for having the longest pair of horns or for
carrying the largest number of fever ticks. Yet,
it was Just such an animal that roughcd it out on
the early ranges and laved the way for the pure
bred of today. The Long Horn the pioneer in
the Oklahoma cattle business and is entitled to
full credit. The Long Horn had his merits.
OF the men who have followed the entire transit
ton from the Long Horn to the pure bred in
oklahoma, none has been more closely identified
with every phase of this great movement than
Frank Gaut, president of the State Board of
Agriculture. Mr.. Gault got his early experience in
the Oklahoma cattle game foreman of an out
fit that annually chaperoned some thousands of
Texas cattle over the Texas and Oklahoma trails
to the Kansas "eow towns" that offered the
est market in the days when the state didn't need
any corporation commission to boss the railroads,
for there were no railroads.
Seated at his desk in the Board of Agriculture
rooms the other day, Mr.. Gault grew reminiscent
Before him lay copy of the 1915 report of the
State Board of Agriculture. On the page in
sharp outline, was a picture of Woodford 5000
one of the greatest Hereford bulls in history. On
inside title page was a picture of "a Vanishing Ty
the Longest Horned Steer in the World" 1t was :"
old" and "the new" of cattle breeding
II have a letter here,'' l said, "from the MONTE
MAGAZINE asking for story the early cattle day
something of the movement that has put less horn 8
more meat the Oklahoma steer"
Here, in brief, is the story
From 1875 to 1890 Oklahoma was known as a cat
country Trails were established in what Il
known as Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory,
the purpose of driving Long Horn Texas cattle to
Northern markets. Many driven through Cobb
up through the Pottawatomic Shawnee, Sac and
Nations and across the of the Usage and Che
kee Nations to Cofeyville, Kansas, and many of tn
to Kansas City, for slaughter After the Santa Fe
built to Wichita that town became shipping point
Texas and Oklahoma cattle. Blocker of Texas; VII
Mccoy and w. B. Grimes, of Kansas City; John Oh
holm of Texas; Sugg Bros, Smith and Forsythc,
Texas and Oklahoma, among the carly day CT
temen who sent their herds over the trails to the Mort
ern markets.
"One living here in the early DAYS, from 1870 to Isl