Western heritage thrives on El Paso County longhorn ranch

Stan Searle has a dramatic way of reminding people of the Western heritage in these parts. He and local cowboys at noon Thursday will herd about 40 head of wicked-looking Texas longhorn cattle down Tejon Street. Some weigh more than 1,000 pounds and have horns that stretch 6 feet or more from one tip to the other. "We're showing people that their hamburgers don't start out in the back room at Safeway," says Searle, only half-jokingly. The longhorn drive promotes the Ride for the Brand Championship Rodeo, whose contestants work on area ranches, not the professional rodeo circuit. Not many folks know that Colorado has more than 2.6 million head of cattle, and the business is one of the largest sectors of the economy valued at more than $2.8 billion, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Longhorns are the legendary icon of Western life. But they are not a huge part of those numbers and were once nearly extinct because consumers at the time wanted fattier, marbled meat. There are about 500,000 longhorns registered nationally with the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association, including 12,000 in Colorado. There are estimated to be about 700,000 in the country...more