Title: The Cattle Drive
1The Cattle Drive
Get A Job!!!
2- After the Civil War, when soldiers came home
to Texas they found the place swarming with
longhorn cattle.
http//www.cowboyshowcase.com/longhorn_cattle.htm
3- Longhorns are a tough breed and walk great
distances. And, if there is grass to chew, they
can even fatten up on the journey.
http//www.cowboyshowcase.com/longhorn_cattle.htm
4http//www.assadtexaslonghorns.com/
5- The Texas longhorn were descended from cattle
brought to America by Columbus and the Spaniards
who followed him.
http//www.flickr.com/photos/reedco/3208937664
http//www.luisprada.com/Protected/IMAGES/christop
her_columbus1.jpg
6- The longhorns were running loose on the range.
They bred and multiplied and were so numerous
that people were killing them for their hides and
throwing away the meat.
http//www.assadtexaslonghorns.com/
7- The ex-soldiers knew beef was expensive back
east. Now, if they could find a way to get those
cattle east, there was money to be made.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle3-2.htm
l
8- About this time, Jesse Chisolm, drove a herd
of cattle north from Texas to Kansas and made a
map of his route.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
9- That route had plenty of grass for grazing and
enough water and it led to Abilene, Kansas. In
Abilene, cattle were selling for 40 a head.
Forty dollars was a lot of money in those days,
especially since you could get longhorn in Texas
for about 5.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
10- The Kansas Pacific Railroad reached Abilene in
1867, cattle could be shipped east in railroad
cattle cars. Most cows got shipped to Chicago,
Illinois.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/ironmountain.
html
11- When refrigerated railroad cars were
developed, Chicago became the meatpacking capital
of the country. Most of the cattle that traveled
the Chisolm Trail got turned into steaks in
Chicago.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileTiffany_RRG_1877
.jpg
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileSteak_03_bg_0403
06.jpg
12- For the next 20 years, the Chisolm Trail was a
ribbon of longhorn. More than a million cattle
were driven north on the trail. Who drove the
cattle? Why, cowboys, of course.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drive
13- Cowboys were paid about 90 for the
two-to-three month journey from the Texas
panhandle, across the Red River, through Indian
territory, over deserts, and prairies.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileCowboy.jpg
14- It was the cattlemen, who owned the cows and
steers, who got rich.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
15- Some people call cowboys knights of the
prairie. and they were like knights, they rode
with amazing skill, handled danger and bravado,
and had their own code of honor.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleriver.h
tml
16- It was not an easy life. There were killers on
the Chisolm Trail, brutal heat, blizzards, hail,
angry Indians, rattlesnakes, quicksand, rustlers,
bandits, thirst, and
http//www.firstpeople.us/american-indian/people/l
s/atsina-warriors.jpg
17- andmost common of all, stampedes. A herd of
cattle will stampede at the drop of a frying pan.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleogallal
a.html
18- Cowboys were usually up before dawn and were
often still hard at work into the night. But
there was something about the life that most of
them loved. As one cowhand said..
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle3-3.htm
l
19- To ride around the big steers at night, all
lying down full as a tick, chewing their cuds and
blowing, with the moon shining down on their big
horns, was a sight to make a mans eyes pop.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleriver.h
tml
20- Pretty soon it got to be a regular thing,
traveling the Chisolm Trail. Herds of two or
three thousand cattle became common.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
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23- Usually a dozen cowboys were hired to handle a
herd, with a trial boss and cook. The cook was
important. Cowboys got ornery if the coffee
wasnt strong and the food decent.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle4-2.htm
l
24- Like other Americans, cowboys were a mixture,
some white, some black, some Mexican, some, like
Jesse Chisholm, part Indian.
http//www.africanaonline.com/Graphic/black_cowboy
s.jpg
25- Some were women. People were judged by what they
could do, not by the color of their skin, the
accent in their speech, or their sex.
http//www.flickr.com/photos/37606659_at_N06/35458451
50/
26- Most cowhands wore tight-fitting clothes, leather
chaps, floppy vests, fancy boots, and
broad-brimmed hats, clothes adapted from those of
the cattlemen who had come from Spain.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle2.html
27- Much cowboy lingo was Spanish chaps, lariat,
rodeo, ranch.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle2.html
28- It was a lonely life they led, so they livened it
up by singing around the campfire, or telling
tall tales.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html
29- Abilene was the first of the Wild West towns,
and maybe the wildest of them all, with saloons
and pistol-packing cowpunchers raring for a good
time.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattleogallal
a.html
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City,201878-500.jpg
30- A town like that needed a marshal, and Abilene
go the most famous one of all. James Butler (Wild
Bill) Hickok.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok
31- Hickok had been a gambling man who had two
pearl-handled pistols and was known as the
fastest draw in the West.
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-BillHickok.html
32- Hickok could shoot the hat off a man and keep the
hat in the air with his bullets and when it
finally dropped it would be rimmed with a circle
of bullet holes. At least that was the story he
told.
http//www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/Ju
ly-August-08/On-this-Day--Wild-Bill-Hickok-Duels-D
avis-Tutt.html
33- Wild Bill was paid a big salary, 150 a month,
for keeping law and order in Abilene. He did a
fair job for a while, although most of the time
his office was at a gambling table.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileWild-Bill-3.jpg
34- After a while, Abilene settled down and became
respectable. After that the cowboys and their
longhorns headed for the new towns of Wichita and
Dodge City.
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City20Gathering-500.jpg
35- About 1875, Dodge City became the main railhead
for shipping cattle eastward. Most say it was an
even wilder place than Abilene.
Dodge City, 1874
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileWyattEarp-andoth
ers.jpg
http//www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/Dodg
e20City,201878-500.jpg
36- But by the end of the century, when railroads
crisscrossed the land, and barbed wire fenced it
in, the heyday of the wild cow towns was over.
http//www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattlemittie.
html