When the trustees of the Will Rogers Memorial went looking for an investment to secure the future of the humorist's boyhood ranch, they got serious about raising longhorns.
"We can make more money out of these than we can buying CDs," Joe Carter, director of the Will Rogers Memorial, told the board of the Dog Iron Ranch. So the Will Rogers Heritage Trust voted last week to restore the long-gone longhorns to the ranch, starting with a herd of 40.Trust members figured demand for leaner beef makes longhorns a good investment, and the tourists will like them.
Rogers was 11 in 1890 when he designed the brand for the 400-acre Dog Iron Ranch. It was among thousands of longhorns that he honed the rope tricks and wisecracks that brought him fame as a vaudevillian, columnist and movie cowboy.
So much for his claim that all he knew was what he read in the papers.