Heard someting on the radio today about how the horse population in Alabama is greater now than a hundred years ago, when they were the primary means (I suppose, other than feet) of transportation on land. I can’t believe this is true, even for Alabama, anyone know how the current horse population stacks up in other states v. the past?
I have wondered the same thing. I wondered what they did with all the horses when cars came on the scene (I know it was many years but did they stop breeding for the most part?)
As the above indicates, I find that very hard to believe. Most people live in urban and suburban areas where having them would be difficult and they are expensive and time-consuming for anyone. We have two and I live on a street that is oddly equestrian centered especially for a Boston suburb but that is far from typical.
I always wanted to know what horse ownership rates were for people say in the 1890’s. Did people in those Victorian neighborhoods or those early Frank Lloyd Wright neighborhoods have them like we have cars today?
At least in AL, most farms probably had mules, not horses. Also, people tended to live and work and shop closer to home unless they were rural. Folks stuck to their own neighborhoods, very often. City folks, unless they were very well-to-do, probably had no stabling for horses. 100 years ago many cities probably had street cars, which were phased out after WWII. Saddle horse were probably mostly for the well-off, and again, at least here in TN, if you look at old photos, you see more draft mules than horses.
StG
You forgot horsecars in urban areas–there were huge stables for them, and thousands of horses went to the knackers when the trolley was introduced.
But if you’re talking about 1906/07, horsecars had been out of service for a decade or so, so aside from work horses for drayage and deliveries, I don’t think there’d be that many.
My Dad remembered only one horse left, the milkman’s, in the 40s, but Harlem-1902-born Grandma remembered plenty being around but starting to give way to trucks. And my grandpa drove up to see relatives in Vermont in 1919-1920 in his nice black Model T (I have a pic he labelled ‘My Chariot’ with him sitting on the running board) and from his snapshots they used horses for work and to get to church and town.
Of course, there were rental horse-and-carriage agencies for city folks but I think most of them found it much easier to take the railroad for long trips.
This doesn’t answer the OP directly but gives some idea of current horse populations in the US and some states therein.
From here:
There are now about 9.2 million horses in the US. For some reason the site gives figures for only 14 states, as follows:
698,000 in California
256,000 in Colorado
500,000 in Florida
203,000 in Indiana
320,000 in Kentucky
164,000 in Louisiana
153,000 in Maryland
281,000 in Missouri
083,000 in New Jersey
147,000 in New Mexico
200,000 in New York
326,000 in Oklahoma
979,000 in Texas
099,000 in Wyoming
These figures add up to 4.41 million. Presumably the other 4.79 million are located in the rest of the US.
From here we learn that in 1915 the total horse population in the US peaked at 21 million, reducing to 7 million in 2003.
Looking here it appears that the current number of horses in Alabama is 187,000. I can’t find figures for 1906 (or 1915) relating to that state.
It would appear that from 2003 to 2006 the total US horse population increased by 2.2 million.
None of the above figures include wild horses which, from here, we are informed have dwindled from 2 million in 1900 to 25,000 at present.
That’s all.
I wonder if those tallies include these wild stallions [sic]? Backpage Seizure
I’m an officer of the Minnesota Horse Council, an affiliate of the American Horse Council. That American Horse Council site only gives figures for the states that had a detailed study done by those consultants. (Your state horse council had to pay extra if you wanted the detailed study on your state. Many declined.)
Also, in most states, there is no official government tally of horses. Sometimes they are proposed, but are often opposed by the states’ horse owners. Because:
- horse owners tend to be rather independent types.
- horse owners think ‘the only reason the government wants to know how many horses we have is so they can figure out some way of taxing us for them’.
Another thing to consider is the ratio of human population to equine. The US population is significantly larger now (300,921,881 and rising, as described in this site) than in 1907 (87,008,000, according to Wikipedia). So, it is possible the number of horses in a specific state is larger now than a hundred years ago–but has the ratio of horses to people increased?
And FTR: Alabama’s population in 1907 as described at Wikipedia: 1,513,000
Alabama’s 2005 estimated population: 4,557,808