Spanish explorers were the first to reintroduce horses to North America beginning in the late 15th century; American Indians helped spread them throughout the Great Plains and the West.

Until as recently as the mid-20th century, horses continued to be released onto public lands by the U.S. cavalry, farmers, ranchers and miners.

The fight for wild horse protection began in the West. During the 1950s in the state of Nevada, Velma B. Johnston, later known as “Wild Horse Annie,” led a grass roots campaign against the way wild horses were being gathered from the rangeland by ranchers and hunters for commercial purposes.

In January 1959, Nevada Congressman Walter Baring introduced the first bill prohibiting the use of motorized vehicles to hunt wild horses and burros on public lands. The House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill which became known as the “Wild Horse Annie Act.”

The bill became law that year, but it did not include Johnston’s recommendation that Congress initiate a program to protect and manage wild horses.

As public interest mounted, members of both the Senate and the House passed a bill in 1971 providing for the management and protection of wild horses and burros on public lands.

President Richard Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act into law on Dec. 15, 1971.

The wild horses in southern Missouri were not afforded the same protection because they were not in a herd management area designated by the Bureau of Land Management.

In the early 1990s, the National Park Service officials argued that the Shannon County horses were a threat to native plants and could not be properly managed by the federal government. They decided to relocate the herd of 30 horses away from the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

But residents who wanted the horses to remain fought the decision. And in 1996, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and the late U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo., got legislation passed to protect the horses and keep them in Shannon County.