The Legendary Brady Buck: A World-Record Whitetail Deer

The Brady Buck, also known as the Benson Buck, McCulloch Buck, and 78-Point Buck, is a world-record whitetail deer that was found on the Ford Ranch near Melvin in McCulloch County, Texas, in 1892. The buck’s record-setting antlers are currently displayed on the mirrored back bar of the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in San Antonio.

There are two sets of antlers attributed to this famed deer, and both received scores from the Boone and Crockett Club (B&C), which was established in 1887 to “promote the conservation and management of wildlife” and maintains records on trophy bucks. The B&C scoring system takes into account a number of characteristics of antlers, including size and symmetry (with categories of typical and non-typical), number of tines (known more commonly as “points”), inside spread measurement, and so on. Tales regarding the discovery of the antlers vary, but a widely accepted story is that Jefferson Davis Benson, foreman of the Ford Ranch in McCulloch County from 1888 to 1894, found a pair of shed antlers in 1891; the non-typical horns later scored 286 points in the B&C system. A second set of antlers, which were still attached to the Brady Buck’s skull when he was killed in 1892, received a 284 3/8 score per B&C standards. There are no records on the hunter who killed the Brady Buck, but one commonly-repeated tale is that an old cowboy came into Brady (county seat of McCulloch County) and claimed he had shot a “Goliath buck with a rack that looked like Yosemite Forest.” Benson, who had heard the exclamations of regional cowboys who had spoken of glimpses of a monster buck with antlers that “looked like a twisted mass of cedar roots,” reportedly found the dead buck. Still another story tells that Benson himself shot the Brady Buck but “lost the blood trail,” and the carcass was found later.

However it happened, the 78-point rack appeared in the nearby town of Brady, where Benson attempted to sell the antlers. When he could not readily find a buyer, he left them on display for sale at a feed store operated by Sheriff James “Jim” Cannon Wall. Soon after hearing of the massive antlers, Albert Friedrich, founder of the Buckhorn Saloon in San Antonio, came to Brady and paid $100 for the mounted antlers; the money was split between Benson and Wall. Friedrich stated in his memoirs, “It has 78 prongs and I feel the greatest pride in its possession. It is mounted on a shield, forming a five-point star on which is spelled the word Texas. Protruding therefrom is a neck and head of symmetrical proportions. Growing from the head is a unique cluster of horns, which wrap the beholder in astonishment and admiration.” The mount became the centerpiece of the back bar at the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in downtown San Antonio. Friedrich advertised the mount as, “A Remarkable Pair of Texas Deer Horns Classed as the Finest in the World.”

Soon one of Friedrich’s competitors, William “Billy” Henry Keilman, displayed a similarly impressive set of antlers in his San Antonio saloon, the Horn Palace. Friedrich initially tried to buy Keilman’s antlers, but was unsuccessful until his competitor finally needed the money in 1922.

On January 3, 1955, Grancel Fritz, famed hunter and scorer of the Boone and Crockett Club, came to San Antonio to inspect the mounts. Fritz, who helped develop the scoring system for the organization, awarded scores for each of the mounts for inclusion in the B&C record book.  Scoring criteria dictate that an antler tine or point must be at least one inch long to be counted, and therefore Friedrich’s original 78-point buck actually had 49 points that were each one inch or longer, scoring a 286. The slightly smaller 72-pointer from Keilman’s collection scored a 284 3/8, with 47 measurable points. In 1957 they were ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, titles which they held for more than a quarter of a century. The Brady Buck, therefore, was reported to be the largest free ranging whitetail that Texas had ever produced.

In 1958, after the Buckhorn collection moved to the Lone Star Brewery, the trophies were remounted and refitted with new skins, and it was discovered that the famed 78-point buck was constructed from shed antlers. This disqualified it from the records of B&C, but the organization in 1964 mistakenly dropped the 72-point buck (with its antlers still attached to its skull and therefore a legitimate record) but kept the 78-point buck (actually composed of sheds) in the record book and attributed the Brady Buck to Jeff Benson and the year 1892.

In 1996 John Stein, whitetail deer expert, B&C scorer, and curator for the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum, studied both sets of antlers, which most likely came from the same trophy deer. Stein was also a scorer and director of the North American Shed Hunters Club. He x-rayed the 78-pointer mount and verified that those antlers were indeed sheds. They would be dropped from the B&C record book but could be measured for the North American Shed Hunters Club. Stein estimated that the deer was between 6 ½ and 7 ½ years old. He suspected that the 72-pointer, which had been dropped from the B&C record but potentially qualified for inclusion in the shed antlers record book, may not have been composed of shed antlers. He remounted the 72-point rack and discovered that it was a “true skull plate and not the shed antlers reported to B&C before the 1964 B&C book.” He also discovered that the skull had been broken and wired back together. As a result of his findings, the Brady Buck ranking changed in the B&C record book, certifying the 72-pointer (measuring 284 3/8) as Texas’s No. 1 and as No. 3 in the non-typical whitetail category in the world at that time.

The Ford Ranch became known for its legendary whitetail deer after the Brady Buck and still claims the genetics of the buck and promotes its premium whitetail deer hunting. The Brady Buck has been long remembered with its prominent place in the Buckhorn Saloon and through the use of its image for advertising, merchandise, and postcards for the establishment through the years. Both antler mounts that came from the famed whitetail deer of the 1890s, are still displayed in the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in San Antonio. More recently, the Brady Buck is seen in an iron silhouette sign that welcomes visitors to Brady, Texas; and a replica of the deer is on display at Cabela’s in Allen, Texas.