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The November 1947 issue of The Polled Hereford Magazine published this
image of two bull calves loading onto a Mount McKinley Airways plane
for shipment from Centralia, Washington, to Palmer, Alaska. The caption
read, “Denoting the progress of the Polled Hereford breed, this
picture represents several possible ‘firsts’—first air shipment of
Polled Herefords out of the Western United States, first movement of cattle
to Alaska by air, first shipment of purebred cattle of any kind to that
northern country.” Pictured were from left, Cecil L. Mattox, herdsman
at the Whiteface Ranch, George J. Galvin, and his son, Knight Galvin. University of Alaska Anchorage, Consortium Library.
The animals are TWR Jim Domino, left, and TWR Buster Domino.

Polled Herefords are naturally hornless, or “polled,” and provide
plenty of beef, characteristics of a breed developed by Warren Gammon of
Des Moines, Iowa. Gammon initially was inspired in 1898 after viewing
some hornless cattle on exhibit at the Trans-Mississippi World Fair in
Omaha, Nebraska.

The horned breed was founded in Hereford County, England, and while
18th-century farmers noted that certain animals did not develop horns, it
was considered a favorable mutation. Gammon, developer of the Polled
Hereford, went on to form the American Polled Hereford Cattle Club in the
early 1900s. The first registry was founded in 1901 and since then the
Polled Hereford registry has joined with the American Hereford
Association.

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