Otto Fulscher and his astounding bull are local legends

At the age of 85, he was recognized as Livestock Man of the Year, and 11 years after his death, he was inducted into the Honor Gallery of the Hereford Heritage Hall. Otto Fulscher has gone down in history for his contribution to the Hereford industry, due in large part to his great bull, Prince Domino, and their story took place right here in northeast Colorado and the surrounding area.
    To those in the Hereford business, Prince Domino was known for his “tremendous breeding power” and “unequalled prepotency.” The bull gained popularity, as his offspring began winning frequent awards at stock shows, and breeders quickly began seeking Prince Domino out to sire cattle for their own herds.
    Wyoming Hereford Ranch, near Cheyenne, Wyoming, proudly cites Forrest Brassford on its website, proclaiming that in 1981, the American Hereford Association’s Genealogical Listing of Hereford Sires devoted 79 of 100 pages to Prince Domino’s descendants.
    
    Getting his start in the cattle industry
    Fulscher did not come from a ranching family. He was born in Germany, Dec. 11, 1875, the son of a veterinarian. Looking to start a life in the United States, his family arrived in New York March 16, 1881.
    When Fulscher was 10 years old, his family moved to Big Springs, Nebraska, where they stayed for six weeks while his father, Claus, looked for a homestead. They ended up settling 23 miles northeast of Holyoke, where county roads 16 and 61 meet in modern Sedgwick County. Of course, at that time, Holyoke was not yet incorporated.
    The family stayed in the area for 10 years, but Claus was not satisfied, and they moved to Central City. Fulscher stayed behind. By 1896, about 75 percent of the local homesteaders had moved on.
    As a young adult in his early 20s, Fulscher did his first cattle trading with his own money. He had $6, so he traded a shotgun and $5 for a heifer calf. On his way home, he stopped at a neighbor’s house, where he traded the calf for a steer. One week later, a cattle buyer named Pete Fast came to the area and bought the steer for $25, and it seems Fulscher was hooked on buying and selling cattle.
    A few days later, he went to a sale near Sedgwick and bought two heifer calves for $23, leaving him with just $2. However, it wasn’t long before Fast returned. Fulscher asked for $30 for the calves, and Fast offered $28. It was a deal.
    With his $30, Fulscher went to an auction, looking to buy more cattle. He bought several head with borrowed money, and on the way home had an opportunity to sell them for a profit already. He decided to keep them for a few years and let them grow.
    In 1898, Paul Renck bought them, and Fulscher doubled his money, even after paying 15 percent interest on his borrowed funds.
    About that time, Fulscher made a deal with his stepbrother, Charlie. Charlie had a salary of $50/month, working in Central City. He’d send Fulscher half his salary to buy cattle, and Fulscher got to keep one-third of the cattle for running them. After three years, they had 76 head, 25 1/3 of which belonged to Fulscher.
    After seeing their success, Fulscher’s brother, Daniel, sent $2,000 over time to build up the herd. Fulscher bought 100 head with that money, and again, one-third of the herd belonged to him. Eventually, he bought the other two-thirds, as well, with borrowed money.
    Soon, Fulscher began buying cattle and shipping them to Omaha, Nebraska, whenever he had enough for a train car load.
    Fulscher worked hard to manage all the cattle he was trading. It wasn’t until 1903 that he built his first fence to contain his 400-head herd and could stop riding out every day to keep track of where his cattle were.  
    Fulscher’s success served him well when John Reimers, the largest cattle buyer in the West, came to Venango, Nebraska, looking for someone to buy cattle for him. Fulscher came highly recommended, and Reimers employed him. According to Colorado Hereford Heritage 1990, “It gave young Fulscher a clearer vision of the ideal beef animal. As time went on it created within him a desire to breed cattle to that end.”
    During that time, most cattle in the area were shorthorns and black cattle, with some Hereford bulls.
    In 1907-08, Fulscher and his wife, Carrie, who he married in 1900, built a house in Holyoke. It was ordered from Sears Roebuck and Company, was delivered piece by piece on a train, and was built by Fulscher and Renck. It still stands today at 339 E. Denver St.
    In 1909, Fulscher purchased his first six purebred Here­ford heifers for $60 a head in Nebraska. It turned out those heifers were descendants of Anxiety 4th, a prominent bull. Fulscher sold off his other breeds, the six Here­fords became foundation of his herd, and he went into his own registered cattle business.
    In 1912, Fulscher attended National Western Stock Show in Denver, and it is said that he attended until 1965, never missing a year. Over the years, he bought and exhibited numerous Herefords there. In fact, it was there that he saw Beau Aster in 1913.
    Beau Aster was 8 months old at the time, and he was compact, short-legged and exactly the kind of bull Fulscher was looking for to grow his herd. He was in the line of Beau Mischief, exhibited by Mousel Bros. from Cambridge, Nebraska.
    Fulscher tried to buy the bull in Denver, but he was already slated for auction in Grand Island, Nebraska, the following month. What was Fulscher to do but go to Grand Island? There, he purchased Beau Aster for $600.  
    
    Prince Domino emerges
    Beau Aster proved to be as good a sire as Fulscher had hoped, and his offspring won awards and turned a profit for him. However, the fine daughters of Beau Aster would soon need a bull of their own, and Fulscher went off in search of another herd bull.
    In 1915, Fulscher set out for Independence, Missouri, where Gudgell & Simpson had a few bulls of interest. On his way, Fulscher stopped at their Kansas ranch, where their dams were kept. Quite by chance, Fulscher saw a 6-month-old calf there that caught his eye, and he committed his tattoo, 881, to memory.
    He went on to Independence to see the bulls, but Fulscher couldn’t stop thinking about that perfect calf. He left without a bull of serviceable age, instead opting to buy the calf for $500. That calf was promptly named Prince Domino, a name that continues to carry weight in the Hereford world even a century later.
    That purchase proved to be the most influential of Fulscher’s life, and many would argue that it was one of the most influential in Hereford business as a whole.
    Fulscher formed a partnership with Leon Kepler, and Fulscher-Kepler Herefords existed until 1932, when the cattle were dispersed.
    The Craig Empire-Courier stated in 1930, “As the bull grew to maturity, he was placed in service quite generally on the daughters of the Fulscher & Kepler herd bull, Beau Aster. It was the outcome of this cross which caught the fancy of purebred promoters and range cattle breeders of the Colorado region, Texas and the entire western country... The Prince Domino-Beau Aster cross on bulls, coming from Holyoke, Colorado, grew to have the call as reproducing itself accurately and speedily.”
    The 1919 American Hereford Journal noted junior bull and heifer calves sired by Prince Domino both took first place in the National Western Stock Show. “The get of Prince Domino from Beau Aster dams exhibited at the 1919 National Western Show attracted much attention from breeders. They possessed all the quality that has made the Beau Asters famous, and with it combined the well-known merits of the great Domino family. We know of no cross in modern Hereford history that has proved more successful than the Beau Aster- Prince Domino cross.”

Read the full story and many others FREE in the 2017 Salute to Beef special e-Edition!