The Texas Longhorn is a sturdy hybrid breed resulting from a random mixing of Spanish retinto stock and English cattle brought to Texas in the 1820s and 1830s by Anglo-American frontiersmen. With their long legs, hard hoofs, little need for water, and ability to swim rivers and survive weather extremes, longhorns were ideal trail cattle. During the first half of the 1800's, Texas longhorns were trailed to markets in Missouri and beyond. Through the 1880's, contractors drove five to ten million cattle out of Texas, reviving the state's economy devastated by the Civil War.