Postcard from the Past: Half-Breed Buffaloes

Consignment of Wyoming cattle includes two animals sired by a buffalo bull

Thus reads the headlines of a news item in the Nov. 30, 1901 issue of the Rawlins Republican, with the following article:

A. Petrie of Walcott arrived in Omaha, Neb. last week with a shipment of cattle sent in by Richard Savage and R.C. Middlewood, which included a cow and a steer whose head and shoulders made it apparent they had buffalo blood.

About eight years ago, Savage, who is a big ranchman located near Fort Steele, discovered a buffalo bull calf on the Red Desert, which he captured and tamed. The calf evidently had come down from the North with a herd of buffalo to winter on the desert and after straying from the herd, was unable to find its way back.

Savage raised the calf, which grew into a fine 1,200-pound bull and allowed him to run with his cattle, and at present, has a number of animals which are half-bloods and quarter-bloods. 

Savage placed a ring in the animal’s nose and used other means to protect him from hunters, but about two years ago, a tenderfoot happened along who perhaps did not know buffaloes were not born with rings in the noses and shot the bull, which in all probability was the last buffalo in the state of Wyoming. – Omaha Drovers’ Journal