By western author Nick Brumby

“Martha, you can take yer iron horse and poke it where the sun don’t shine. I’m trustin’ these ladies to get us home.”

Horses are fine and good, but when you absolutely positively needed to pull a load of freight from Kansas to Colorado, oxen were overwhelmingly the most popular choice for freight wagon trains.

For a start, horses and mules were much more prone to be targeted by a Native American raiding party. Cattle could graze the local prairie grass for sustenance, where horses and mules required additional forage that had to be carried along.

Oxen were considerably cheaper than horses or mules and didn’t require an expensive harness that quickly wore out; an ox yoke could be whittled from wood and would last for many years.

In sand or mud, the ox had better traction with his cloven hoof than the mule with his small hoof. At the end of the freighting season, oxen could be turned loose on the prairie and would actually fatten over the winter on the free grass.

And finally, at the end of his working life, or in case of emergency, the ox could be butchered and eaten.
The meat from an ox was tough, and people who ate it confessed to “sitting down to dinner hungry and getting up tired,” but it tasted like beef and contained a good supply of protein.

An ox had mixed lineage, possibly including Hereford, Longhorn, line-back or shorthorn crossbreeds to develop muscle for work on the range. The animals typically were allowed to continue building muscle as draft animals beyond 10 years of age, and they grew to about 2,000 pounds. An average steer for beef purposes is about half that size.

In 1850, the U.S. Census reported there were 1.7 million oxen in the nation. By 1890, that number dropped to about 1.17 million nationally, 720,767 in the West.

The era of the ox may have passed, but this sturdy beast will never be forgotten for its role in opening up The West.

About Nick Brumby

I like a good story. And of all stories, I love westerns the most.

As a kid, I spent far too many afternoons re-watching Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, picking up ‘Shane’ for just one more read, or saddling up beside Ben Cartwright when ‘Bonanza’ was on TV each afternoon.

I’m a former journalist and I love horses, dogs, and the occasional bourbon whiskey. I live with my wife, daughter and our ever-slumbering hound in a 1800’s-era gold mining town – our house is right on top of the last working gold mine in the area. There may not be much gold left, but there’s history wherever you look.

I hope you enjoy my westerns as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Happy trails,

Nick