The Cattle Drive

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The Cattle Drive
Get A Job!!!
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• After the Civil War, when soldiers came home
  to Texas they found the place swarming with
  longhorn cattle.

http//www.cowboyshowcase.com/longhorn_cattle.htm
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• Longhorns are a tough breed and walk great
  distances. And, if there is grass to chew, they
  can even fatten up on the journey.

http//www.cowboyshowcase.com/longhorn_cattle.htm
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http//www.assadtexaslonghorns.com/
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• The Texas longhorn were descended from cattle
  brought to America by Columbus and the Spaniards
  who followed him.

http//www.flickr.com/photos/reedco/3208937664
http//www.luisprada.com/Protected/IMAGES/christop
her_columbus1.jpg
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• The longhorns were running loose on the range.
  They bred and multiplied and were so numerous
  that people were killing them for their hides and
  throwing away the meat.

http//www.assadtexaslonghorns.com/
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• The ex-soldiers knew beef was expensive back
  east. Now, if they could find a way to get those
  cattle east, there was money to be made.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle3-2.htm
l
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• About this time, Jesse Chisolm, drove a herd
  of cattle north from Texas to Kansas and made a
  map of his route.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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• That route had plenty of grass for grazing and
  enough water and it led to Abilene, Kansas. In
  Abilene, cattle were selling for 40 a head.
  Forty dollars was a lot of money in those days,
  especially since you could get longhorn in Texas
  for about 5.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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• The Kansas Pacific Railroad reached Abilene in
  1867, cattle could be shipped east in railroad
  cattle cars. Most cows got shipped to Chicago,
  Illinois.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/ironmountain.
html
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• When refrigerated railroad cars were
  developed, Chicago became the meatpacking capital
  of the country. Most of the cattle that traveled
  the Chisolm Trail got turned into steaks in
  Chicago.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileTiffany_RRG_1877
.jpg
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileSteak_03_bg_0403
06.jpg
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• For the next 20 years, the Chisolm Trail was a
  ribbon of longhorn. More than a million cattle
  were driven north on the trail. Who drove the
  cattle? Why, cowboys, of course.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drive
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• Cowboys were paid about 90 for the
  two-to-three month journey from the Texas
  panhandle, across the Red River, through Indian
  territory, over deserts, and prairies.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileCowboy.jpg
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• It was the cattlemen, who owned the cows and
  steers, who got rich.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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• Some people call cowboys knights of the
  prairie. and they were like knights, they rode
  with amazing skill, handled danger and bravado,
  and had their own code of honor.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleriver.h
tml
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• It was not an easy life. There were killers on
  the Chisolm Trail, brutal heat, blizzards, hail,
  angry Indians, rattlesnakes, quicksand, rustlers,
  bandits, thirst, and

http//www.firstpeople.us/american-indian/people/l
s/atsina-warriors.jpg
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• andmost common of all, stampedes. A herd of
  cattle will stampede at the drop of a frying pan.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleogallal
a.html
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• Cowboys were usually up before dawn and were
  often still hard at work into the night. But
  there was something about the life that most of
  them loved. As one cowhand said..

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle3-3.htm
l
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• To ride around the big steers at night, all
  lying down full as a tick, chewing their cuds and
  blowing, with the moon shining down on their big
  horns, was a sight to make a mans eyes pop.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleriver.h
tml
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• Pretty soon it got to be a regular thing,
  traveling the Chisolm Trail. Herds of two or
  three thousand cattle became common.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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• Usually a dozen cowboys were hired to handle a
  herd, with a trial boss and cook. The cook was
  important. Cowboys got ornery if the coffee
  wasnt strong and the food decent.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle4-2.htm
l
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• Like other Americans, cowboys were a mixture,
  some white, some black, some Mexican, some, like
  Jesse Chisholm, part Indian.

http//www.africanaonline.com/Graphic/black_cowboy
s.jpg
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• Some were women. People were judged by what they
  could do, not by the color of their skin, the
  accent in their speech, or their sex.

http//www.flickr.com/photos/37606659_at_N06/35458451
50/
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• Most cowhands wore tight-fitting clothes, leather
  chaps, floppy vests, fancy boots, and
  broad-brimmed hats, clothes adapted from those of
  the cattlemen who had come from Spain.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle2.html
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• Much cowboy lingo was Spanish chaps, lariat,
  rodeo, ranch.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle2.html
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• It was a lonely life they led, so they livened it
  up by singing around the campfire, or telling
  tall tales.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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• Abilene was the first of the Wild West towns,
  and maybe the wildest of them all, with saloons
  and pistol-packing cowpunchers raring for a good
  time.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleogallal
a.html
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City,201878-500.jpg
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• A town like that needed a marshal, and Abilene
  go the most famous one of all. James Butler (Wild
  Bill) Hickok.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok
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• Hickok had been a gambling man who had two
  pearl-handled pistols and was known as the
  fastest draw in the West.

http//www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-BillHickok.html
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• Hickok could shoot the hat off a man and keep the
  hat in the air with his bullets and when it
  finally dropped it would be rimmed with a circle
  of bullet holes. At least that was the story he
  told.

http//www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/Ju
ly-August-08/On-this-Day--Wild-Bill-Hickok-Duels-D
avis-Tutt.html
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• Wild Bill was paid a big salary, 150 a month,
  for keeping law and order in Abilene. He did a
  fair job for a while, although most of the time
  his office was at a gambling table.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileWild-Bill-3.jpg
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• After a while, Abilene settled down and became
  respectable. After that the cowboys and their
  longhorns headed for the new towns of Wichita and
  Dodge City.

http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City20Gathering-500.jpg
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• About 1875, Dodge City became the main railhead
  for shipping cattle eastward. Most say it was an
  even wilder place than Abilene.

Dodge City, 1874
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileWyattEarp-andoth
ers.jpg
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City,201878-500.jpg
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• But by the end of the century, when railroads
  crisscrossed the land, and barbed wire fenced it
  in, the heyday of the wild cow towns was over.

http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattlemittie.
html