There was a time when no one thought twice when seeing cowhands on horseback drive five hundred or so cattle into a river, emerging en masse on the other side to continue on their way. These days, it’s certainly an oddity, but it has been happening outside Bay City twice a year for almost a century. The Huebner family’s cattle drive dates to the fall of 1919, when the cows were first herded across the Colorado River near its mouth at what is now Matagorda Bay Nature Park. The cows spend the winter grazing on Matagorda Peninsula and swim back across the river each spring. It’s a time-honored Texas tradition. So far, no one has found an easier way to move the cattle back and forth, and we hope the Huebners never do.
