Our winner is Ann Franklin who was the first to figure out that all of the brands depicted were legitimate. In my Colorado brand research, I picked out some of the ones that tickled my funny bone. I know, it was a bit of a trick question. I didn’t plant an imposter brand for the reason that anything I could make up might turn out to be real later. With more than 135 years and thousands of published brands, I couldn’t be sure. As funny and outlandish as they seem to be, even the stick figure was registered in Colorado. I have some doubts that some of them were ever used on a cow, but somebody paid good money to have exclusive rights to a smiley face. I wonder if he can get royalties on text emojis?
Here are the brand owners:
$B – S.A. Parker of Rifle, 1887
Smiley Face – Tom Bonds of Durango, 2022
ZRO – The Plateau Livestock Co. of Leadville
PUS – James Mikkelson of Meeker, 1887
Bar B Q – David Peachy of Golden, 1997
2 Lazy 2 P – Theron Johnson of Paonia, 2022
Stick Figure – Luke McCrain of Delta, 2022
Keystone symbol – Price & Bowkley of Meeker, 1887 (later sold to the Utah-Colorado Cattle Co. Teddy Roosevelt stayed at the Keystone Ranch headquarters in 1900 to hunt mountain lions)
F A T – Arthur G Johnson of Redwash, 1887
Two Musical Notes – William J Drake of LaPorte, 2022
7 UP – Veatch & Bellows of Meeker, 1886 and currently Dennis Salzbrenner, Sugar City
D A D – Adam Smith of Glenwood Springs, 1887
X L – Justin Story of Fort Collins, 2022
M O O N – Peter Locomo of Eastonville, 1887
W H Y – J.H. Way of Satank, 1887 and Eliza J. Young of Meeker, 1897
By Ed Peck | Special to the Herald Times
