Legendary Bulls Sell at Denver for Generations

November 23, 2025

DENVER, CO., November 23, 2025 – In January of 1945, as told in a Time Magazine spread titled Range Royalty, the Brown Palace Hotel was prepared and seemed to be awaiting royalty. A curious mink-draped woman asked a bellhop who they were expecting. The bellhop reportedly grinned and told her, "A $50,000 bull." She snapped and admonished him to not be nasty. Then, as has become custom at the Brown Palace in January, TT Regent walked up the red carpet, every pound the star. Dan Thornton, with his signature Stetson and pipe, raised the bull and sold him to Edward F. Fisher of Detroit and Richard C. Riggs of Catonsville, Md.

Thornton, whose bulls were the first at High Tea, beginning a tradition that continues today with the champion and reserve steers, was often on the pages of The Rocky Mountain News in the 1950s. He was Colorado's own Gipper, born in California, educated in Texas, and a West Slope cattleman who entered politics and served as governor from 1951-55.

Thornton, whose bulls were the first at High Tea, beginning a tradition that continues today with the champion and reserve steers, was often on the pages of The Rocky Mountain News in the 1950s. He was Colorado's own Gipper, born in California, educated in Texas, and a West Slope cattleman who entered politics and served as governor from 1951-55.

The record-breaking sales at the National Western Stock Show stemmed from Thornton's marketing efforts. A booklet titled "Parade of the Triumphant Type" included photos of the cattle bound for the NWSS and, according to R.L. Preston's biography, invited cattlemen "to study carefully the individual excellence and the breeding of Thornton's Triumphant Type Herefords entered into the Hereford sale." Ahead of hauling 20 head of cattle and a large crew including his ranch manager, Jim Sanders, herdsman Bobby Edward, Jim Watt, Cad Jones and Mitchell Munis, Thornton also took out 14 pages of ads in the Rocky Mountain News, inviting all to the National Western.

After photos of Thornton with his bulls, TT Regent and TT Triumphant 29th were featured in newspapers around the country and in Time and Life magazines, letters poured into the ranch mailbox. According to the late Dr. Preston's Stetson, Pipe, and Boots – Colorado's Cattleman Governor, A Biography about Dan Thornton, letters asked for autographs, money for 4-H clubs, and plenty of letters inquiring about the handsome Thornton. A woman in Indiana wrote, "Why Waste words in a couple of mere $50,000 bulls. Tell us more, we beg of you, of their owner, that handsome Dan Thornton

Many of Thornton's cattle went back to the DeBerard & Reagor Ranch in Toponas, Colo., and the Wyoming Hereford Ranch herd owned by Bob Lazear. Lazear's Domino line had a profound influence on the Hereford breed and continues to appear on registration papers from the American Hereford Association.

That year, Thornton, now ranching in Gunnison, took home $200,000 in cattle sales from Denver. It was a fitting introduction to the Thornton's decade-long ranching career. When the herd was dispersed in 1955, the 416 head fetched an average price of $2,305.

Dan Thornton died in 1976, and his archives take up 54 cubic feet in storage. His legacy within the Hereford breed and among cattlemen and the legendary flair and appeal of his hat and pipe, are farther reaching and more enduring than any executive order in a box.

CSU IN THE YARDS

Colorado A&M exhibited the grand champion steer at the NWSS in 1906. In 2026, the CSU Seedstock Marketing Team will be leading a pen of Hereford heifers, also with a long history, into The Yards, 120 years later.

Dr. Samantha Cunningham who today serves as the advisor for the Seedstock Team said her students are intrigued with the university's long shared history with NWSS.

In the 1960s, Colorado State University's Angus herd was about 30-head of small framed — 800 to 900-pound mature weight — females and also bulls raised by the program. Performance records from that time showed weaning weights of 360 pounds, yearling steer weights at 700 pounds, and carcasses weighing 650 pounds and grading choice plus with 3, 4 and 5 yield grades. By the next decade, the original cows were dispersed, and another herd was assembled. Dr. Jim Wiltbank initiated a research project sponsored by American Breeders Service. When Wiltbank left CSU in 1974, the research program ended, but 50 head of females were retained and became, according to former Seedstock Team adviser Dr. Bob Taylor, an integral part of the herd used in the instructional program. One of the treasures in Cunningham's files are Taylor's handwritten ledgers and those cows' performance records were maintained to teach students to hand calculate records. Detailed carcass information was generated over the years primarily by using the same Angus sires on 100-head of fall-calving commercial cows. 

Taylor wrote that the most notable Angus bull from the CSU program was CSU Rito 4114. He was the Reserve Champion and co-high selling bull for $10,500 at the 1976 National Western Stock Show. After CSU Rito 4114 was purchased by Bob Sitz of Harrison, Mont., and several of his calves appeared in Sitz's December 1978 sale.

The CSU Hereford herd was rebuilt through the generous support of some of Colorado's premier Hereford breeders.

"On that list are names like Perry Blach, Randy's father, Jack Orr, who is Casey Orr Hoffman's and Tanya Orr Perez's grandfather, all of whom are cheerleaders for our little Hereford herd as it is now," Cunningham said.

Other Hereford breeders who donated to the herd include the late Ben "Doc" and Bet Kettle, who were well known Custer County ranchers and their daughter, Sara Shields, is among the Seedstock Team's supporters. The late Don Norgren's family continues to support the team as well as Arapahoe Ranches in Walden; Tom Hook, Hillside; Darris Cumming, Amherst; Max Fulscher, Holyoke; Bob Norris, Colorado Springs; Lawrence Phipps; John Rice, Loveland; Bud Winger, Yuma; Goemmer Brothers, LaVeta; Dick Clennin, Rye; and Stow Witwer, Greeley.

The heifers that will be exhibited 120 years after CSU's first appearance have a compelling story of their own. Their mothers have been in previous pens since Cunningham took the reins in 2020. The dam of one of the pen heifers was not, however, in any previous pens but she was a matriarch, and the Denver-bound heifer is her last calf. The matriarch was the donor dam of the first Pen of Three Heifers Cunningham and her students took to Denver. Her last bull calf from a consistent string of bull calves, was in CSU's pen of bulls in 2025.

THE KREBS HERD

The Krebs Ranch will also be Denver-bound in 2026 with three pens, even returning to The Hill with Angus cattle.

Jake Scott, director of marketing for Krebs Ranch, said the two bulls that are top of mind for him when he thinks of Denver are New Design 1407 and BR Midland.

Both of those we sold an interest in at the Bases Loaded Sale out in Denver and that was in one of the first two of that sale," Scott said. "Those bulls both went on to be very influential in the Angus breed, they were both big semen sellers, they both got a lot of use in our personal herds and those are the success stories in my mind."

Scott said for them to campaign bulls in Denver, they need to see potential and have the confidence in them to anticipate they'll be game changers.

"Both of those bulls had very good returns for the buyers," he said. "In fact, I think New Design 1407 was the higher seller of the two and if I remember right, he paid off in the very first year in semen sales. He returned on that investment and that's a pretty big success story in that way."

On the bottom side, Scott said there are many names that come to mind, many of which go back to the heyday of the years the Krebs Ranch crew was showing more cattle.

"The Queens, the Tillies, the Sandies, the Winnies," he said. "You would probably have to say the Sandies and the Winnies, both of those were Denver champions and both of those have gone on since then to produce champions at the National Junior Angus Show, lots of national champions at different levels, there have been some that have come back to win Denver themselves for other people. Those families have gotten spread out and scattered out through their progeny to a lot of different herds and still today, you see the names in different programs."

Source: Rachel Gabel, The Fence Post Magazine and Western Ag Network