Cattle Drives and Trails

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.

drag

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.

There were millions of buffaloes in the west. the Transcontinental railroad was just created. In the eastern cities people needed food. cowboys, also known as cowhands and vaqueros would move them from as low as Texas to the railroad to ship them to the eastern cities.

The dangers mountain men dealt with were mountain lions and mountain goats.

a popular cattle drive route in the years after the Civil War

A cattle trail is a long piece of dirt path that is only a foot in width and an infinity in length that cattle have made to follow, leading to and from their source of water and mineral and pasture.

These trails are fun to bike along with a mountain bike, especially if the trail is used frequently. However these trails also house many a cow-patty along the way, so watch out if you don't want to have to hose down your bike (and yourself) after every trip out in the pasture.

A lot of cattle ranches were in vast open spaces away from big cities like New York. There was a limited transport network so the easiest way to get livestock from A to B was to walk them. They were taken to railheads in places like Kansas for shipments to stockyards in Chicago and farther east. This also insured fresh beef or pork where it was required, i.e the cities.

The definition of a cattle drive is when you drive cattle from a ranch to the railroad for slaughter.

the cowboy needs cattle, food, horses and a laso

The trails were the Oregon trail and the California trail the California trail led to California and the Oregon trail led to Missouri.

Those were jobs that were available. There was lots of demand back east in restaurants for beef, the cattle were raised out west far from the few western railroads, so it was necessary to hire cowboys to drive the cattle all the way from the range to the railroad.

Within about 10 years the railroads expanded and went directly to where the cattle were raised and the age of cowboys and long cattle drives came to an end. The cowboys lost their jobs.