The Texas Longhorn is a sturdy hybrid breed that resulted from a random mixing of Spanish retinto stock and English cattle brought to Texas in the 1820's and 1830's by Anglo-American frontiersmen. With long legs, hard hoofs, little need for water, and the 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.