ARIZONA CATTLE BRANDS

Cattle brands are something that most people associate with rustlers and roundups and romantic days of the Old West. But cattle brands play an important role in the West of today, as the 12,758-plus active brands currently registered with the Arizona Live Stock Sanitary Board eloquently testify.

A brand is an owner's mark, an indication that the animal wearing it is the legal property of some individual or cattle-owning outfit. To a cattleman, putting a brand on a steer follows the same principle as putting a ring on a girl's hand-and tampering with a brand brings liability for punishment the same as tampering with a man's wife.

Branding, as a means of marking one's possessions, is an old practice, as old as ancient Egypt. The Spanish conquistadores brought the custom to the New World, along with the cattle they imported cattle that became the ancestors of the longhorns and wild stock that roamed the Western plains in the days when the ranges were wide open and the West was really wild.

Cortez branded his cattle, using "three Christian Crosses," and he is also said to have branded the Aztec captives he trained as cowboys; he branded them with a "G" for guerra (war). Since the captives were secured before the cattle were imported, the first New World cowboy probably wore a brand on his hide before a similar mark was burned on the first New World calf.

Coronado probably brought the first cattle into Arizona in 1540 as food for his expedition in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola. But it is thought that few, if any, of these animals survived to escape and populate the ranges. A century and a half later the industrious Jesuit priest, Father Eusebio Kino, gave Arizons cattle raising its first big boost on the missions he established in the southern part of the state. After Kino's day, Apache depredations kept ranching operations and cattle raising to a minimum until it blossomed again briefly after 1820. It is from this period that vast land grams, like that of San Ignacio del Babacomari, San Bernardino, San Rafael, and San Juan de las Boquillas y Nogales, date. On these wide spreading acres haciendados lived in baronial splendor until the Apaches swept in again and forced the landlords and their retainers to withdraw, leaving hundreds of cattle behind to populate the ranges.

Meanwhile, history marched on. The Southwest was added to the expanding United States, both by force of arms and by means of the Gadsden Purchase. Then the North and the South went to war, leaving the West largely to the Indian. But after Appomattox, the troops returned and ranching activities again became profitable as the threat of Indian raids decreased.

ARIZONA TLE BRANDS

There are some records of brands in Arizona from the early 1800's. For example, the "diamond over an inverted flying U" was issued by the King of Spain to Ygnacio Antonio Pacheco of Tubac in 1812. That same brand is still on record in the current Arizona Brand Book, listed in the name of Marcus F. Pacheco of Benson, who uses it horizontal on the left hip of cattle and on the left shoulder of horses.

Tully and Ochoa, an early Tucson business combination, recorded their "TO" brand in 1849. J. L. Becrup registered a brand in Pima County that same year, a design that made use of all three of his initials.

Prior to 1895, cattle brands in Arizona were recorded with the counties, and no effort was made to avoid duplication of brand marks from county to county.

Early cattlemen followed the same system of brand recording as that used by ranchers in Mexico. Each brand was burned on a piece of tanned leather, and these samples were strung on wires and filed away by the county recorders, for later reference and comparison in case a legal decision had to be made concerning the validity of a mark burned on a cow's hide. Written on the back of these brand samples was information, also entered in the county recorder's book, giving a description of the brand, name of owner, date of recording, and signature of the recorder.

It is not hard to see how the use of similar brands by different cattle owners in different counties, especially adjoining counties, could lead to endless difficulties and, not infrequently, to violence. This was especially true in the 1880's when improved railroad facilities made large shipments of cattle possible.

To remedy the situation, the Territorial Legislature finally ruled that brands should be registered with the newly-crested Live Stock Sanitary Board, rather than with the individual counties. Arizona was the last of the range states to adopt this central method of brand registration. The first Arizona territorial brand book was published in 1897.

By the year 1919 there were more than 17,000 recorded brands in Arizona. But, with the requirement of re-registration that year, more than half of the total were dropped. But then the number began to climb again until 1931, when the State Legislature passed a law requiring re-registration of brands every ten years. Next year, 1961, all owners who want to keep their brands active must re-register them with the State Live Stock Sanitary Board. Fee for the registration of a new brand is $10, and for renewal of an old one $2. The most recent Arizona brand book was published in 1953, the new edition is scheduled to be off the press in 1963. Let us suppose that you, or. I, or anyone, should want to register a brand. How do we do it? First, we think of a design, and with this in hand we go to the Live Stock Sanitary Board office at 1700 West Adams Street in Phoenix. There, as we fill out an official brand application blank, we present our design to Mrs. Elsie Haverty, who has been Brand Clerk for the past eleven and a half years.

Mrs. Haverty studies our design. She knows, to begin with, that our brand will have to be something rather unusual to avoid duplication with the nearly 13,000 symbols already on record. She knows that single units are no longer recordable (no single letter, or digit, or single symbol like a cross, or a slash, or an arrow). She knows also that a symbol within an inclosure (like a "Circle C" or a "Box 8") is no longer available.

She also scrutinizes our brand for the possibilities of too easily changing it into some other person's brand. For example-a "lazy 3" can become a "B" or a "heart" or a "13," while a "slash" can become a "7" or a "V"-it is amazing what an expert with a running iron can do to an unsuspecting brand.

After that, Mrs. Haverty will check to determine whereabouts on an animal's anatomy we may put our brand. This, too, must not duplicate any other owner's mark. The possibilities are: jaw, neck, shoulder, ribs, hip, thigh, on the right or left side or on both sides. Brand locations are listed separately for cattle and for horses.

Positions on the left side are pretty generally taken, so we have a better chance of recording our brand on the right. This is an outgrowth of custom-for some reason or other in the old days, cattlemen preferred to brand their stock on the left. Old time cattlemen also preferred brands close to the animals rear-they said a brand close to a cow's "fly knocker" (tail) was less apt to become infected than a brand farther up front.

At the same time we record our brand, we may also record our earmarks, although this is not required. It is, however, another method of identification, and most owners have their earmarks registered along with their brands.

Besides brands for cattle and horses, there are one hundred and fourteen sheep and goat brands recorded in Arizona. Fire brands may be used on the noses of these creatures, or the brand may be stamped on the wool with paint or tar. Earmarks are also recorded.

After a brand design has been thoroughly scrutinized and approved by the Brand Clerk, a month must pass while it is advertised in the newsletter of the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association. Then, as at the crucial point in a marriage ceremony, is the time for an objector to speak up or forever after hold his peace. If no one contests the design, or its location, the brand may be recorded officially.

Must we own cattle in order to register a brand? The answer is yes, although the Live Stock Board does not care whether our herd numbers two or two thousand. There is one exception to this requirement of cattle ownership. If a man plans to buy cattle, but must first borrow money from a bank, the loan will not be made unless he has a brand. In this case, the Live Stock Board grants brand registration.

Can brands, themselves, be bought and sold? Indeed they can, like any other personal possession, and the transfer is duly recorded. When a brand owner dies, his brand is transferred in the same manner as his real estate instruments of conveyance are made through court action.

There will be many brands sold and transferred during the next couple of years in Arizona, Mrs. Haverty predicts, before the new brand book is issued. Cattlemen will seek out brand owners who do not plan to re-record, and many old brands will find new ownership. It is easier to re-record an old brand than it is to create and register a new one, and, should an old brand be dropped, it probably could not be picked up again because of later registered designs that conflict with it.

Are brands like fingerprints; are no two ever alike? Well-yes and no. Ideally, there should be no duplication. However, because of the original method of county brand registration, there are still some identical brands to be found in different parts of the state. For example, in 1951 there were six "V bar" brands on record. As for duplication from state to state-Arizona makes no effort to avoid brands recorded in neighboring New Mexico, California, Utah, Nevada, or Colorado.

Most branding is done at the spring and fall round-ups. Fire branding is still the most popular method, done either with a stamp iron (a metal replica of the brand itself, equipped with a long handle), or a running iron. The running iron is legal in Arizona, but has been outlawed in some states because of its frequent use by rustlers. It is merely a long iron rod with a hook or a curve on one end; it is used to "draw" the design, like a red-hot pencil, rather than to stamp it on all at once.

In recent years some ranchers have leaned toward acid-branding rather than fire branding. The caustic material is applied either with a brush or a stamp, but it must be used skillfully. If the acid runs, the brand is "blotched" and is not as clear and easily read as it should be.

Latest innovations at roundup time are a butane-fueled branding iron heater and an electric branding iron. The latter can be plugged into any 110-watt outlet or standby generator and will be red hot in ninety seconds. It is expensive, but it makes a "pretty" brand, and, because its heat can be controlled and kept constant, it is much less

How to read brands Here are some of the symbols most frequently used.

"Rocking H"

"H Quarter Circle"

This would probably be read "T up and T down."

Another version of "Rocking H", also often called the "Rocking Chair".

This is "Tumbling Y". It might also be "Tilting" or "Toppling".

Letters can face either way.

This is "Double R".

"TH Connected"

"Swinging J"

"Running N"

"Quarter Circle J"

The wings at the top make this a "Flying U".

"Bar"

"Rail"

"Drag F"

"Lazy S"

"Slash"

Two rails are "Two Rails", but three rails become "Stripes".

Prettiest of brand designs are those derived from Old Mexico. As a rule, these brands have no "popular" names. They are registered chiefly to owners of Spanish-American or Indian descent.

"Bench"

"Pig Pen"

"Walking Box"

"Rafter"

Apt to burn too deeply or to blotch.

Roundups always have been busy, hard-working, hard-cussing times on the range. The animals are gathered in a central place, usually a corral, and the unbranded calves are marked. Under the time-honored system of operation, it is the job of a mounted “roper” to separate the calf from its mother and take it to the “rastler.” Little calves are roped around the neck and led; big calves are roped by the heels and dragged.

The rastler “flanks” the calf by reaching over the animal's back and grabbing two handfuls of skin, one on the flank and the other near the foreleg. With a firm hold, he leans back and flips the calf over on its side. The rastler then grabs the calf's top foreleg and gets a knee on its neck to hold the head down. His partner catches the top hind leg and pulls it straight out behind, bracing his foot against it for further control.

With hide stretched taut, the calf is branded, ear marked, de-horned if that is desired, vaccinated against black leg, and bull calves are castrated. Favorite medication to prevent infection especially screw worm is smear EQ 335, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-developed formula.

At regularly established corrals these days, you are apt to find a “squeeze chute” at a narrow place in one of the runways. This device does away with the jobs of roping and rastling. The animal is urged into this space, blocked front and rear, and the sides are pushed together to hold the protesting creature motionless. In this helpless position, a calf can be branded and worked on more easily than when it is stretched out on the ground with a man tugging at either end.

The squeeze chute is often used with horses, too. They are more high strung and the treatment recommended for them is gentler than that given cows. Horse brands are usually smaller, and more apt to be on the shoulder than on the flank. It takes a skillful and experienced hand to use a branding iron successfully. A red-hot iron burns too deeply, so a gray-hot one is preferable. Yet if the brand is not burned deep enough, it will not “peel”—that is, the scab will not come off clean. If the iron is too hot, especially if a complicated stamp is used, the brand will blotch. Too much pressure burns a hole through the hide and this is not good; actually, it takes very little pressure and a very short application time to put a good brand on an animal. Sometimes, in the case of more complicated brands, several irons are used to complete the design.

The branding iron should not be confused with the brand itself. The iron is merely the instrument-the brand is the mark that counts. Many ranchers treat the family branding iron with the same respect that other pioneer families give the ancestral flintlock rifle.

Old branding irons have become collector's items, and they command respectable prices in antique shops. Collectors know their chances of a good buy are better in a junk shop-but, alas, most junk dealers today are not unaware of the value of their wares.

You can buy a modern iron-brand new-at any store that handles cattlemen's supplies; there are stock numerals and letters. You can also have your own branding iron made at any welding or ironworking shop - some shops make a specialty of this. Anyone can have a branding iron made-but it takes ownership of cattle to get a brand registered.

Western fiction and television have tended to place great emphasis on brand alteration by rustlers. But “working a brand,” like the production of hard-to-detect counterfeit money, requires skill and intelligence. One technique is to add to a brand by drawing additional marks with a hot wire or running iron. Care must be taken not to burn over an old brand too deeply, for a twice-scarred burn can be detected.

A favorite Arizona method was to wring out a wet blanket, place it over the brand and then, with a red-hot frying pan applied to the blanket, scald off the hair on the branded area. In a month or so, when the hair grew back, the area could be re-branded.

In the case of a skillfully-done brand alteration, the only sure method of detection is to kill and skin the animal. The old brand will show more clearly on the flesh side of the hide than will the more recently made brand. But, unless the owner wants the animal killed anyway, it is a rather drastic method of detection.

By far the easiest method of rustling did not necessitate brand alteration. The rustler posed as an honest rancher but, strangely enough, he always had more branded calves than he had adult cows. Since twins and triplets on the range are fairly uncommon, the conclusion to be drawn was obvious. Big spreads and absentee ownership were great aids to this kind of cattle rustling in early Arizona. Indeed, it was said that in the old days a saddle horse and a rope were all the equipment anyone needed to start a cattle herd on the old Hashknife or A One ranges. These outfits, especially, lost unknown hundreds of head of cattle to the wide loops and running irons ofThe “A One” was another big cattle outfit in northern Arizona. It was an outgrowth of the Moroni Cattle Company.

J. L. Becrup registered this brand in Pima County in 1849. The design combined his three initials.

There are several “Saguaro” brands on record.

This was the brand of the Aztec Cattle Company. Cowboys of the late 19th century thought it looked like a “Hashknife.” “CATTLE DRIVE THROUGH RED ROCK COUNTRY” BY BOB BRADSHAW. 4x5 Crown Graphic camera; Ektachrome daylight; f.8 at 1/50th sec.; Ektar lens; June; light value of 15 on GE meter; ASA rating 12. This photograph was taken on a cattle drive at the base of Wilson Mountain, just north of Sedona.

small and ambitious "business men."

Reading brands is an art, and an activity that requires not only familiarity with the general terms and symbols used, but also a large amount of imagination, strongly laced with originality.

There is a standard terminology, of course. Brands are read from left to right, from top to bottom, from outside in. Letters may stand erect and face either left or right; letters or figures that lie flat are called "lazy"; tipped at an angle they are "tumbling," "tilting," or "top-pling."

Top-pling. A short horizontal mark is a "bar;" a longer line is a "rail." Set at an angle the bar becomes a "slash." Put two legs on a letter or figure and it is "walking;" slant one line backward and it is a "drag." Two straight or curved marks attached to the top or sides of a letter or figure indicate that it is "flying." Script letters are "running." There are "quarter circles" and "half circles," and when one of these (usually the quarter circle) is joined to the top of a letter or figure it is "swinging," while attached to the bottom it is "rocking."

It makes a difference in the reading whether letters are connected or not, and whether they are inverted. Sometimes it takes a great deal of imagination to see as many letters in the design as the owner intended.

By far the most interesting brands are those that are, or suggest, pictures of things. It is in interpreting these that the cowboy's imagination really goes wild - and some of his most picturesque interpretations of brands are those that cannot be presented in print. However, there are plenty of brands that are both printable and interesting.

One of the most famous brands in early Arizona was that of the Aztec Cattle Company, an outfit owned by Eastern capital and operating on a vast range ninety miles long and forty miles wide, extending from the Tonto Rim to the Navajo Reservation, from Flagstaff to Holbrook. The brand used by the Aztec Cattle Company looked something like an upside-down anchor, but to the cow-boy's less nautical eye it looked like the chuckwagon tool used to cut up ingredients for hash. Thus, the Aztec Cattle Company lost its identity as such and, instead, became widely known as the "Hashknife Outfit."

Sharing the Northern Arizona ranges with the Hash-knife was the "A One" outfit, an outgrowth of the Moroni Cattle Company, which controlled a territory thirty-five miles long and twenty-five miles wide, north and west of Flagstaff. The Hashknife and the A One together stockedtheir ranges with more than 55,000 head of cattle. But in the end, before the turn of the century, a combination of overstocking, absentee ownership, bad management, con-flict with small neighbors and their running irons, and the operation of nature in the form of drought, severe win-ters, and over-grazing finally brought about the failure of these enterprises. The Hashknife brand is now owned by the Spur Land and Cattle Company of Flagstaff.

Another early brand in the Flagstaff area was the "CO Bar," owned by five Babbitt Brothers who came to Arizona from Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1890's. The initials of their home town served as the basis for their brand.

The Boquillas Cattle Company, a large operation that began near Benson and is now headquartered at Seligman, uses the "wagon rods" brand. This company had some international brand trouble in 1900 when it bought some cattle bearing a brand recorded both in Phoenix and in Sonora, Mexico. However, at the same time another rancher, living in Cananea, Sonora, intentionally and with-out the company's consent, adopted the same brand. The cross-border complications were obvious, but it was some time before the protests of the Territorial Live Stock Sanitary Board met with any success south of the border.

The cowboy's imagination failed him when it came to reading a brand consisting of three quarter circles, used on a ranch near Hillside. So the brand was simply dubbed "Quien sabe"-who knows. There is a quien sabe brand in Texas, too, only the brand there consists of only two vertical half circles off center, facing each other.

Among the other Arizona brands that go back to the late 1800's are the following. The "Turkey Track" was originally used by Burdett A. Packard, organizer of Arizona's first State Fair, together with Col. Bill Greene in Southeastern Arizona. It is now used by Fred Burkhalter of Glendale. The "Yolo" brand was first owned by Lon Harmon who came to Arizona for his health in 1884 and purchased the Yolo ranch northwest of Prescott in 1904; James F. Filor of Camp Wood is the present owner of the brand.

The "Diamond and a Half" was a brand owned by Coles Bashford, Tucson lawyer who was a member of the First Territorial Legislature in 1864. Willian Flake who, with Erastus Snow, started the town of Snowflake in 1873, used an "F" brand for many years. The "Four F Connected" was another early brand, owned by William Fourr, pioneer cattleman, former gold miner and rider on the southern mail route. His ranch was located not farfrom Cochise's Stronghold.

Since many of the older brands have changed ownership down through the years, it is not always possible to see the relationship between the brand and the name of the present owner. For that matter, there was sometimes no relationship at all, even with the original owner. The early cattleman used a mark that he thought could not be changed easily by rustlers-it might or might not have a special meaning.

Prettiest brand designs are those derived or brought from Mexico. Today one finds them registered chiefly to owners of Spanish-American or Indian descent. These brands, as a rule, have no "popular names," as so do many American ones but as designs they are beauties. The Mexican branding irons, incidentally, differ from U.S.A.-made ones in that the iron handles are shorter and are funnel-shaped at the end to permit the insertion of a wooden handle. Modern collectors use these Mexican irons as candle holders.

In the case of more recently designed brands, the connection with tangible things is more obvious. However, there are stories here, too. One applicant at the brand office wanted the letters "M A" in his brand, no matter how or in what position. The letters were not his initials but, as he later explained, his land and cattle were newly bought and he would be paying on them for years.

The "M A" in his brand, therefore, was most appropriate; the letters stood for "Mortgage Acres."

Brands often follow current trends and reflect the times. There is a "Flying Saucer" brand on record, and a "Rocket." Brands are the pictures of names: the Bier-stein Cattle Company uses a beer stein (complete with foam); C. R. Truelock uses a padlock; Ignacio Manjarre uses a man-sized jar with wings; L. H. Kite uses a kite; J. G. Fisher uses a fish. Fred May has worked his surname into a single set of lines.

There is a brand of "the map of Texas" on file, and another "the map of Arizona." There is an outline of "Camelback Mountain," a well-known Phoenix landmark; a "Balanced Rock" from Cochise County, and a "Sun-down Peak" from Yavapi County. There are also several upright "Saguaro" brands on record, and one "Broken Saguaro."

The T-Cup Ranch uses a "cup" as its brand mark; the Rocking Horse Ranch has a "rocking horse," and the Safety Pin Ranch has a "safety pin" as its brand. And finally, the brand that gives a chuckle to anyone who can read it-it is registered to Renny J. Trombley of Phoenix -is the "2 P."

Cutting'em out