They herded them using horses and the best herding practices they could use to move cattle with and keep them together.
i hat you
Before railroads were built in Texas, cattle had to be herded on cattle drives to the nearest railroad. The first railroads in the United States ran from east to west. After the railroads were built that ran north and south, the Texas cattle ranchers had less distance to cover to reach a railroad for transport.
Before railroads were built in Texas, cattle had to be herded on cattle drives to the nearest railroad. The first railroads in the United States ran from east to west. After the railroads were built that ran north and south, the Texas cattle ranchers had less distance to cover to reach a railroad for transport.
After the Civil War Texas ranchers drove cattle in herds to Kansas because that is where the big stockyards were at the time. It was also a place for the Texas ranchers to use the railroad for shipping cattle elsewhere.
Texas Ranchers sent their longhorns on cattle drives because the demand of the cattle in Texas was low. But high in the north and east. Demand and supply affect the price of nearly everything that was bought and sold - not just the cattle.
Cattle
The longhorns were the only cattle available in America to be used for beef and to send East for beef and for a bit of income.
The railroads helped to create cattle kingdoms in the southwest because cattle could be shipped all over the country. Raising cattle in the southwest provided the ranchers with lots of land and grass to feed the cattle.
Refrigerated railroad cars could take the processed meat to the East. Actually the railroads enabled ranchers to drive their cattle shorter distances to the trains that came to their most local cow-town. The railroads allowed cattle to be transported long distances, quickly and efficiently to distant markets. This meant that herding of cattle on foot over long distances, using much man power, would eventually be consigned to the western cowboy movies.
The railroads significantly opened the cattle industry to sales and sales meant ranchers could expand their lands and herds. Ranchers from even Texas could drive herds north to meet the railroad, and both factors helped develop towns in the Great Plains.
To get them to the railroads for shipment east.
Not really, railroads were built in all of the western states, not just Texas, so that yes, cattle could be shipped to the eastern markets.
The big major cattle drives ended around the early 1900s, when the railroads became more and more accessible for ranchers to herd their cattle to. Then came the engine-powered trucks that could be brought directly to the ranches to haul cattle away to the rail station. When that began, then that was officially when the cattle drives ended.