Around the turn of the last century, wild mustangs roamed the mesatop around Dead Horse Point, and cowboys used the place as a natural trap for catching them. Surrounded by sheer cliffs with only a narrow strip of land for access, the point worked like a box canyon in reverse: cowboys herded horses across the neck, fenced it with pinyon and juniper branches, and created a corral where they could sort the animals, keep the ones they wanted, and release the culls or broomtails. According to legend, on one occasion a band of broomtails was accidentally left confined on the waterless point, where the horses died of thirst within view of the Colorado River far below.