The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

HAZFORD RUPERT 81st.

In the annals of Oklahoma cattle breeding, the state's first important champion show bull was Hazford Rupert 81st, a horned Hereford. Sired by Hazford Rupert 25th and calved in Kansas in January 1935, 81st came to Oklahoma in 1936 when Roy J. Turner and Forrest E. Harper purchased the show stock and small herd from famed Hereford breeder Robert H. Hazlett of Hazford Place, Eldorado, Kansas. Turner and Harper placed the herd on their ranch, a ninety-six-hundred-acre spread called Hereford Heaven, located approximately a hundred miles south of Oklahoma City and five miles east of Sulphur. Turner acquired his partner's share and began an impressive, lucrative, and nationally significant line breeding program.

Hazford Rupert 81st, of the bloodline of famed sires Anxiety, Beau Brummel, and Lamplighter, became the 1936 international champion. Over a lifetime, 81st produced hundreds of offspring that sold for an aggregate of more than $1 million; thus, it has been called the nation's "first million-dollar bull." In 1947 81st died and was buried on the ranch, a headstone marking the resting place. Other champion Hereford bulls owned and shown by Turner were Hazford Tone 76th and TR Zato Heir. Heir's offspring sold for more than $2 million, making it the nation's "first two-million-dollar bull." Turner ranch Herefords produced some of the most important sires and dams in the national Hereford registry and were consistent show champions through the 1960s. In 1963 Turner, who became governor of Oklahoma in 1964, sold Hereford Heaven to Winthrop Rockefeller.

Dianna Everett