Cattle Drives and Trails

Type your answer here... Chisolm Trail

Yes it did. Barbed wire closed the open range. People were fencing off their land preventing cattle from getting by easily. Ranchers had to take long ways around the enclosed areas. And by 1887 and 1888 a harsh winter came in and cattle could not get around the fencing making them freeze to death in the middle of the night. It was a sad part of history, but people still use barbed wire today.

Hollywood has given the public a somewhat 'idealized' view of life on a cattle drive. The reality was very different. Hard physical work, hour after hour on the back of a horse, in temperatures that ranged from sizzling heat to mind-numbing cold, rain, snow and wind that blows the endless dust from the hooves of cattle into the nose, eyes, ears and mouths of the cowboy.

Depending on where the drive started, the trip was usually several hundred miles and took 4 to 6 months to reach the railroad, one of the biggest cattle towns was Abeliene, KS. Sleeping on the hard ground, prey to biting insects and deadly snakes, unfriendly native Americans and cattle rustlers intent on relieving the cowboys of their livelihood or their life. Rivers had no bridges or ferries, you crossed on horseback, all worldly possessions completely soaked. They cowboy supplied his own horse, rope, and other tools necessary to the job. At trail's end, the cattle town held it's own dangers. After months on the job, the cowboy's pockets full from their pay, indulged in drinking, gambling and lewd women. Fights were commonplace, guns were drawn when tempers flared. Many of the cowboys spent their entire salaries within a few days, left scrambling for other work.

These men were independent, tough and couragous. And for some of them it was the only thing they wanted to do. It was a way of life that will never come again.

There was usually a forman, a cook with a chuck wagon and the cowboys. Larger operations may include a blacksmith for shoeing the horses and making repairs to the wheels on the wagons.

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on cattle drives.

Cattle drive came to an end because of the invention of the barbed wire and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Thousands of cattle also perished due to an outbreak of Texas Fever and the Great Winter of 1887-88, which also contributed to the end of the famous cattle drives of the Old West.

Because there was no other way or method to get their cattle to market. Trucks never existed back then, railroads were too slow to be built on time to get their cattle from their ranch all the way to the market, and the cattle trails provided an easy way to find their way from the ranch to the market place.

They used their knowledge of herding cattle and their horses to round them up from the home-base on the ranch, then moved them from the ranch to the place that they are going to sell them. Cattle drives always take more than one cowboy to complete. For instance, over a 500 head of cattle usually took about 10 horsemen to drive from point A to point B which often was 50 or 100 miles away.

Depending on the amount of cattle owned by the rancher that is driving them, anywhere from 1 - 10000000... it is simple

Confederate Veterans

The three great cattle trails include the western trail, the Chisholm trail and the goodnight loving trail.

Cattle have historically, or typically, been raised on marginal lands. This land is not useful for farming and is usually far from population centers. As the nation grew there was a higher demand for beef. Back east all the property was already in production, some for grazing some for crops. This means cattle production needed to increase so it moved to marginal lands or those farther west.

You then had the problem of getting that beef to the market or people. There was no refrigeration so the only choice was to move the cows alive to the rail heads so they could be shipped back east for consumption. Most western railroads went through Chicago so the Chicago Stock Yards became the biggest in the world.

The short answer is this was the only way to get cows from point A to point B. I still use drives of a few miles to get to my corrals or up to 9 miles to go across the ranch.

Transcontinental railroad after your cattle drive.

The transcontinental railroad stopped in Abilene so ran hers could import the cows by rail to the final destination.

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West Shawnee Trail and Chisholm Trail.

You might be thinking of the Chisholm Trail that was used to drive cattle from Texas to Kansas.

Before the Herefords arrived from England, Texas Longhorns and Florida Cracker/Pineywoods were VERY popular in the USA. But, Herefords soon took over once they were imported to America and gained the favour of ranchers as far as meat quality and hardiness was concerned.

It wasn't nearly as romantic as those Western movies and books make cowboy life out to be.

With the expansion of rail lines the need to drive cattle long distances became unecessary. Cattle owners could load their cattle from the nearest town which was usually a same-day trip. This was a great benefit for the owners moneterily speaking. On long drives the cattle would loose considerably weight, reducing the profit since cattle were sold per pound.

To get cattle from the southeast to other regions

They herded them using horses and the best herding practices they could use to move cattle with and keep them together.

Historically, as in the late 1800's, there would be at least a few hundred to a few thousand cattle from several ranches in an area that would be driven a cattle drive to the stockyards in order to be sold.

The 600-mile Chisholm Trail was used extensively until 1871. Illinois cattle buyer Joseph G. McCoy laid out the trail along an old trade path initially developed by merchant Jesse Chisholm. It ran north from San Antonio to Fort Worth, Texas, through Oklahoma and ended at Abilene, Kansas.

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.