The quick easy answer is..The open plains were cut up by "Barbed Wire" Barbed wire put an end to the great Cattle drives of the old West and to a certain extent The Cowboy.
barbed wire and railroads
the market for cattle in texas was too small
It started in Texas
The first railroads built in Texas were used to transport cattle from the open range to the Chicago markets. With their completion the age of cattle drives and cowboys came to an end.
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barb wire
Some famous cattle trails in Texas were:Goodnight-Loving TrailGreat Western TrailChisholm TrailSedalia (Shawnee) Trail
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.
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.
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.
1860-1900
Before the arrival of the railways, cattle had to be herded to market, often over a long distance.
The expansion of railways was the direct cause of this.