How can I find my old livestock brand?
How can I find my old livestock brand?
Records show the brand symbol, name and county of residence of the person registering the mark, location on the body of the animal, and date the brand was recorded. A Google search on your ancestors’ state name and livestock board or cattle brand should point you in the direction of the records.
What was the first cattle brand?
three Latin crosses
The first recorded cattle brand is of three Latin crosses, which represented the brand of Hernán Cortés, one of the greatest of the conquistador in southern Mexico in the 1500s.
What do cowboys use to brand cattle?
In the American West, a “branding iron” consisted of an iron rod with a simple symbol or mark, which cowboys heated in a fire. After the branding iron turned red hot, the cowboy pressed the branding iron against the hide of the cow.
How do you identify cattle brands?
A brand is filed based upon its first letter or character. Brands are read from left to right, top to bottom, or outside to inside. Brands that contain letters, numbers or characters having rafters, quarter circles, or bars above or below are listed under the letter, number or character category.
How do I get a ranch brand?
To be legal and official, you need to register your brand with your state’s department of agriculture. To make a brand, you can use any combination of capital letters, numbers and symbols (like circles and hash marks).
Are Cowboys really branded?
There are thousands of cowboys who have the brand of the ranch they work for emblazoned on their clothes and tack—voluntarily. Brands, by definition, have meaning. Wherever that hide carrying his brand goes, it represents him, his work, his ideals, and his hopes.
Do ranches really brand Cowboys?
Ranchers brand their cattle. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum traces the practice as far back as Egyptian and later Roman times. Each year, one of the most significant times on a ranch is branding time. Some ranchers put the same mark on their cattle that their great-great-grandfather did.
What does flying mean in a ranch name?
The letters with “wings” for example, are described as “flying” while those with “feet” are, you guessed it, “walking.” An upside-down characters is “crazy” while a 90-degree rotation makes a character “lazy.” These colorful designations aren’t just cute nicknames used to identify the characters, but are actually a …
What were the first cowtowns in Kansas?
As the developing railheads moved westward, so did the wild and wooly frontier towns, including Ellsworth, Caldwell, Wichita, and Dodge City. Secondary cattle markets in Newton, Hunnewell, Great Bend, Hays, Brookville, Coffeyville, Salina, and Junction City also achieved brief success as cowtowns.
Where did the long cattle drive start in Kansas?
Cowtowns. Thus began the era of the long cattle drive and Kansas cowtowns. From 1866 to 1885 hundreds of thousands of Texas longhorns were driven annually to shipping points in Kansas. Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell received the major portion of the booming cattle trade.
Where are the best places to ship cattle in Kansas?
Abilene reigned supreme as the Queen of Kansas cowtowns until new railheads in Newton, Wichita, and Ellsworth became the favored shipping points in 1872. Over 3 million head of cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail and shipped from Abilene during its four-year reign.
Is there a cattle market in Junction City KS?
Junction City, located on the Kansas Pacific Railroad line, was a secondary shipping point for the cattle trade. Hays, like Junction City and Great Bend, was never a major cattle market. It did receive some business, however, because of its location on the Kansas Pacific Railroad line and the ready market at Fort Hays.
