Antique Old 40s Americana Folk Art POLLED HEREFORDS Cattle Ranch Painted Sign

  

This is a fabulous and large Antique Old 40's Americana Rustic Folk Art POLLED HEREFORDS Cattle Ranch Painted Tin Sign, oil paint on tin, and mounted in its original wooden frame. This sign reads: COCHRAN POLLED HEREFORDS.

This impressive piece likely dates to the late 1930's - 1940's, and is approximately 36 x 60 inches, and 1 1/2 inches deep. Bartley is a small village (according to Google,) in Red Willow County, Nebraska, and very little information is available on this area, or the Cochran cattle ranch that once existed there. Perhaps you know more about this subject? This sign is curiously painted on the back of an old 1930's Electrolux Kerosene Refrigerator sign, which has been coated with an opaque brown varnish, with the words still partially legible on the verso.

Good condition for age and decades of outdoor display use, with moderate scuffing, edge wear, oxidation, denting, and paint loss throughout please see photos. Acquired from an old estate in Orange County, California, which had many other rustic farm items. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! Polled Herefords represent the development of an idea - an idea spawned in the minds of a small number of Midwestern Hereford breeders in the late 1890s who realized that it was both possible and practical to develop modern Herefords minus horns.

These breeders were motivated by the promising prospect of developing Herefords with outstanding beef-producing characteristics, but with the added desirable trait of being naturally hornless. They planted the seed from which grew a new giant in the American and world beef cattle industry.

The Polled Hereford of today is the result - a modern, practical breed of cattle that has experienced widespread acceptance and desirability. Polled Herefords were developed from the horned Hereford breed which was founded in the mid-18th century by the farmers of Hereford County, England.

Among the horned Herefords an occasional calf would be born which did not develop horns. This change from parents' characteristics is known as a mutation. " These cattle soon came to be called "polled, which means naturally hornless. Warren Gammon, a young Iowa Hereford breeder from Des Moines, originated Polled Herefords.

He seized upon the idea of producing the hornless cattle after seeing some on exhibition at the Trans-Mississippi World Fair in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1898. These Herefords were registered in the American Hereford Association, but were not identified as to their polled characteristic. Therefore, Gammon formed the American Polled Hereford Cattle Club to maintain a separate record of purebred Polled Hereford registrations. Thus, in 1901, the Polled Hereford breed came into being with 11 registrations on record. In 1907, the pioneer breeders of Polled Herefords incorporated their organization, with headquarters in the Gammon home in Des Moines.

Gammon served as executive secretary until 1921. Today the Polled Hereford registry is combined with the American Hereford Association.