14 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN March 2025 “A Herd on the Move” (1861). By artist William J. Hays, Sr. (1830-1875). Public domain. From the R.L. Hough collection. PAST Western Expansion BOB HOUGH | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Few would argue that Nebraska is the center of the United States beef industry. Nationally, Nebraska ranks fourth in beef cows, first in cattle on feed and first in cattle slaughter, as well as geographically being in the heart of our nation’s cattle country. It is also home to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service Meat Animal Research Center, which has done more to characterize breeds than any other institution in the world. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a top-flight land-grant university, and the Nebraska Beef Council and Nebraska Cattlemen are considered two of the top organizations of their kind in the nation. However, few would have foreseen this rise to the top of the beef industry when the lands that would become Nebraska were acquired in 1803. When the United States won its independence from the United Kingdom with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the newly minted country ran from Georgia to Maine, and stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. Although the United States had won its independence in 1783, it was not until 1789 that the U.S. Constitution was ratified and took effect. However, even early on, the United States was a restless nation eager to expand, which first took the form of migration west of the Appalachian Mountains in what was still considered wilderness. The cattle that populated the original colonies were known as natives, which is a misnomer as all cattle in the Western Hemisphere were originally introduced by the settlers. The native cattle were a cross of the various unimproved strains brought from Great Britain, Continental Europe and Scandinavia. They were primarily tri-purpose cattle that could be milked, serve as draft animals and provide beef. The crossing and recrossing of these various strains made them fairly indistinguishable beyond some cases of regional color patterns. In 1783, the same year that the Treaty of Paris was signed, the first purebred Shorthorns reached America. Shorthorns would then go on to be the dominant breed for the next 100 years, and like the natives, were generally selected as tri-purpose cattle. The country’s expansion began in 1803 when the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), made the Louisiana Purchase. At the cost of $15 million, it doubled the size of the United States, adding approximately 530 million acres that stretched from New Orleans to north of the current Canadian border, and included the future state of Nebraska. However,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTMxNTA5