Longhorns roam downtown once more

A hundred years ago, cowboys drove cattle herds down dusty Houston Street regardless of the wild Texas weather.

Rain and biting wind Feb. 4 did not deter the more than 300 participants in the fifth annual Western Heritage Parade and Cattle Drive.

A 20-year-old movie star waited under Interstate 35 at West Houston Street in a staging area to lead the parade.

Sancho, the longest horned steer in rancher Gil Dean's herd, nudged another steer away from a coveted spot of hay. The longhorn appeared in the 2004 movie "The Alamo" starring Dennis Quaid and Billy Bob Thornton.

The speckled crimson and white steer's background makes him no stranger to the Alamo City.

Dean's Bastrop family has worked to keep the herd's bloodline pure for more than 100 years. "Back in the early days, my great-great grandfather drove cattle on the Chisholm Trail," he said.

The Chisholm Trail connected Texas beef producers to the eastern cattle markets. It ran from South Texas through Oklahoma — then known as the Indian Territory — to connect with the railroad in Abilene, Kansas, where cattle boarded trains to eastern states.

The trail was used from 1867-1884 when the railroads reached ranch lands farther south and west.

While Dean's Longhorn herd was in the Alamo City, Welden Riggs, a Palo Alto College agriculture professor, was part of a team of ranch hands and cattle drivers who took care of the herd's needs.

Among his classes is Livestock Evaluation, which teaches students to grade the quality of market and breeding animals according to industry standards.

Agriculture freshman Jessica Berry, who was in Riggs' livestock class last year, led the parade by helping to carry the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo banner.

Marisa Powell, biological engineering and international studies junior at Texas A&M-College Station, was one of the cadets riding with the Texas A&M Parsons Mounted Cavalry.

Powell said cadets learn a lot of practical skills as they run the horse facilities. She said to get into the cavalry, one has to be a cadet in good standing and have at least a 2.5 grade-point average.

Another mounted unit in the parade was the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division's Horse Cavalry Detachment from Fort Hood.

Sgt. Marion Kelley said along with learning horse husbandry, soldiers learn how to build their own saddles and go to farrier school so they can shoe the horses they care for.

Cell phones and cameras dotted the crowd as parade watchers captured images of long past Texas history in the modern streets of San Antonio in the Western Heritage Parade.