The Moment a Myth is Born: The Lore of the Texas Longhorn
“First admired, then rejected, then mythologized.” That’s how historian Joshua Specht explains the trajectory of the Texas Longhorn.
His article “The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Texas Longhorn: An Evolutionary History,” struck me not only because I’m interested in the cultural history of different cattle breeds, but because it placed my own perception of the Longhorn in stark new context.
You see, I went to an SEC school, so the University of Texas has always been on my radar. When I hear the words “Texas Longhorn,” I think back to crowds of teenagers and early-twenty-somethings wearing burnt-orange sweatshirts complete with printed horn logos.
Sports. Pride. Lore. Even myth. The Longhorn logo itself had always seemed to me something a little wistful; something certainly long gone, and because gone, longed-for, and admired.
Specht’s article actually identifies the moment that process of mythologizing begins.
His article opens with the saga of Bevo, the visually dramatic but stringy and dangerous University of Texas mascot, purchased horns-and-all in the 1920s by some overly excited alums who wanted to emphasize the state’s historical ties to ranching. And who, apparently, did not fully think through the housing and care needs of this thoroughly alive and unfriendly creature.
Specht shares that the students and would-be caretakes quickly realized that Bevo and his entire breed, the Texas Longhorn, were not particularly well-suited to being a mascot. The same qualities that ensured self-sufficiency on the range — namely, a cactus-proof mouth and the set of twisted, obscenely long horns — also made him a very, very poor mascot.
Someone quickly came up with a solution: Bevo would be eaten.
So a group of former and current University of Texas students held a powwow — in the culturally appropriating tradition of the state — and ate their mascot. But not before the so-called “chief of the tribe,” R. E. Vinson, declared Bevo “a perfect specimen of his kind,” which was a new perspective on a species just a decade early considered slow-growing, stringy, and disease-prone.
It seems the very drama of the scene had encouraged the declaration; and in that steak-filled moment, the romantic myth of the Longhorn was born.
You’ll have to read more of Specht’s article to get the full story, but I found it fascinating that he was able to pinpoint the exact moment the gears of Longhorn lore were set in motion.
I hope Specht will be back to write more environmental histories of different breeds. I’d like to see a book of them compiled.
In the meantime, I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a UT-Austin sweatshirt quite the same.
