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.
