Seeing that Rawhide is about a cattle drive, and the men who drive them I thought this little history of cattle drives would be appropriate. THE AMERICAN CATTLE DRIVE The American cattle drive as portrayed in westerns such as Rawhide has a lot to do with Texas. It was Texans who turned trail driving into an occupation. In 1836, Texas broke away from Mexico. There was a trail for drives to New Orleans at that time and Texans extended it northward in the1840s. They started to drive herds into such Missouri towns as Sedalia, Baxter Springs, Springfield, and St. Louis as principal markets. In the 1850’s freighting from the Missouri river west created a demand for oxen. Thousands of Longhorn cattle were trained to be used as oxen. Longhorn herds were also driven to Chicago. In the 1850’s the California gold boom also created a demand for beef. Most were gotten locally of from Mexico but some long drives were tried. Australians drove cattle to ports for shipment to San Francisco. Lynnette Cipriani drove cattle from St. Louis to San Francisco along the California Trail and went back to Europe with large profits in1855. Texans drove cattle into the Confederacy for use of the Army there. In 1863 the Union took control of the Mississippi River and stopped those drives, which was hard on the Confederacy to lose. Illinois At the end of the war Phillip Danforth Armour opened a meat packing plant in Chicago called Armour and Company. Even before this, Illinois played a role. For cattle driven out of Texas it was a key site during the time before the Civil War, an intermediate stop and final destination. Cattle were taken there to fatten up on rich prairie grass or Midwestern corn. This served both for those that were driven to eastern cities or went to Chicago slaughterhouses. As early as the 1840’s the Shawnee trail or Texas trail was important in Texas. However farmers started to block the passage of the cattle and the drovers were forced to turn them back because the cattle carried ticks, which spread Texas fever. Although the Texas cattle were immune the ticks infected the local cattle, according to wikipedia. In 1859 laws were passed in banning the diseased cattle from being brought through Missouri. Some drovers tried taking cattle around the eastern edge of Kansas but they also met resistance and new laws were passed. The Shawnee Trail was pretty much unused during the Civil War. Texashad an overabundance of cattle after the war and little in the way of local markets. An estimated 200,000 to 260,000 cattle were gathered to drive overland in 1866. As a result the first large scale cattle drive from Texas to the nearest railhead to ship to Chicago followed. That railhead was at Sedalia, Missouri. The farmers in eastern Kansas being fearful of transient cattle trampling crops and the danger of Texas fever gathered together in groups that threatened to beat of shoot cattlemen. As a result the cattle did not get through and was sold for low prices. The following year a cattle shipping facility was built near the railhead at Abilene, Kansas. It became a cattle center and loaded 36,000 head the first year. This route from Texas to Abilene became known as the Chisholm Trail, as Jesse Chisholm marked out the route. Although this was Indian territory (present day Oklahoma) there were not too many conflicts with the Indians. The cattlemen paid a toll of ten cents a head to the Indians to let the cattle through. Texas had as much as five million cattle at the end of the war and no market for them. Several attempts to drive cattle were unsuccessful. The most successful market seemed to be in Kansas and the drives started heading north. In 1867 Joseph G. McCoy opened a market in Abilene, Kansas. After that the trails westward were established and a boom in trail driving followed. The Goodnight-Loving trail opened up New Mexico and Colorado to Texas cattle. Tens of thousands cattle were driven to Arizona. That was the start of the cattle drive era. From this followed the Cattle towns such as Dodge City and the popular folk the Cowboy.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 15:31:09 +0000
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