Day trip to Matagorda Island

Coming through Texas only locks to cross the Colorado River

The drive has been a continuous bi-annual Matagorda County occurrence since 1919 when the Huebner family started driving hundreds of head of cattle from their inland family farms and ranches to winter grazing land, covered with nutrient dense salt grass, near the sea. In the spring, the cattle return to their ranch homes before hurricane season begins in the Gulf of Mexico. The journey takes three to four days each way.




The site of hundreds of cattle crossing the Colorado river, lead by real working cowboys on horseback, is not one soon forgotten. Not to mention the spectacle of a huge herd of cattle, flanked by cowboys on horseback, being shepherded down the center line of a Texas highway.



It's impossible to give exact dates when the next Matagorda County cattle drive will occur, but they generally happen sometime in November and then again in March. If you have the time to wait in or around Matagorda County, you'll be well rewarded.