Antelope Island buffalo herd originated from Texas

Just how buffalo came to be on Antelope Island goes back to 1890 when William Glassman of Ogden chanced to see a herd while visiting a friend in Texas.

He bought 12 of the animals from a man nicknamed "Buffalo Jones," and had them placed in a railroad car and shipped to Utah. At the time, the Texas herd was the only privately owned herd in the United States.

They were supposed to go to Ogden, but instead were offloaded somewhere near the southern tip of the Great Salt Lake.

It would be two years before the buffalo were purchased by White & Sons, which was in charge of the island at the time, and eventually moved to the island. In those two years the herd had grown to 17 animals.

There are a couple of accounts on how the buffalo made it to the island. One is they were herded over a land bridge near the southern tip while the lake waters were low.

Another tells of horseman trying to load the buffalo onto a flatboat. It was reported that it took two days to get the buffalo to the loading site.

Jones died shortly after selling the buffalo to Glassman. His herd of about 1,000 buffalo was sold to the government and moved to reserves, which left the island herd the only privately owned herd in the United States at the time.