Click here to find out about the development of the Cattle Industry
The Civil
War
The US
Army
The
Railroads
The Plains
Indians
Demand
in the East
Goodnight
& Loving
The Open
Range
Cow
Towns
The
Cowboys
Between 1861 and 1866 the USA was
split by a Civil War between the
Northern States of the Union and the
Southern States of the Confederacy.
Texas was on the losing side. During
the war the Ranchers of Texas were
cut off from their markets in the North
and East. A small time rancher,
Charles Goodnight, was away from Texas and had no contact with his herd of cattle.
Yet in this time it increased from around 180 to 8 000 head. All over Texas the
impact of the Civil War was to lead to a massive increase in the number of cattle;
by 1866 there were an estimated 5 000 000 cattle in Texas. The economy of the
East went into boom and the demand for meat grew after the end of the war. Texan
Cattlemen looked for a way to meet this demand and make a profit.
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The 1860s were a decade of Plains
wars between the Indians native to
the area and the incoming white
settlers backed by the US Army.
The army built camps and forts on
the Plains to maintain its control,
protect its soldiers and safeguard
the new migrants or homesteaders. These forts were given names such
as Fort Laramie and Fort Sumner. The soldiers in these forts needed
feeding with fresh meat, and contracts were available to those who could
supply the demands of the army The US Army also had the job of ensuring
the supply of food to the Indians on the reservations.
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One big problem of moving the
cattle from Texas to the cities of
the East was transport. The
building of the Trans-Continental
Railroad by 1868 solved this
problem. It was now possible to
drive the cattle to a rail depot,
sell them to a dealer, who could then transport them in refrigerated wagons
to the growing cities of the East such as New York and Chicago. Vast
profits were now available for those with the cattle to sell. The railroad
arrived at Sedalia in 1865, and by 1870 it extended into Kansas. It was
here that the cow towns such as Abilene were built at railheads for the
transport of cattle to the East.
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The 1860s were a period of
reservation life for many of the
tribes of the southern Plains. They
had been defeated by the US
Army and were now trapped on
reservations controlled by the
army and government agents.
The reservations were usually in the worst areas of land and the Indians
found it impossible to support themselves through farming. The agents
appointed by the government had the responsibility of ensuring that the
Indians were ‘looked after’ and fed. Contracts were available to those who
could supply the cattle needed. By 1870 the US Army was buying between
60 and 70 000 head of cattle a year to feed the Indians and its own soldiers.
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The middle of the nineteenth
century saw an industrial
revolution in the northeast of
the USA. Vast cities were growing
and with this growth came millions
of new immigrants and workers
who needed to be fed. The end
of the Civil War in 1866 had sped up this process. The market was there,
and the Cattlemen of Texas, with their vast herds, were determined to
fulfil it. The railroads of the 1860s and 1870s offered the required transport
to bring the beef to the marketplace.
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The cattle industry in Colorado owed
much to Charles Goodnight and Oliver
Loving, who were Texan ranchers. By
the end of the Civil War Goodnight had
a herd of about 8 000 cattle. With few
chances for selling beef in Texas, he
looked to the mining towns around
Denver in Colorado. In 1866 the two
men drove the herd towards Colorado. The Goodnight-Loving Trail swung west
into New Mexico. Here, by chance, they discovered another market. A Navajo Indian
reservation had been established at Bosque Rodeo near Fort Sumner. By 1866, the
Navajo were starving, and the government was keen to buy Goodnight’s beef.
Goodnight and Loving repeated their drive in 1867. Their success and profits of
1866 led to many other ranchers following them into the trail driving business and
the cattle trade of the 1860s was born.
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As the profits available to
cattlemen continued to flow in the
1860s, a new breed of rancher
was born. This was the era of the
Open Range and the Cattle
Barons. The first of this new breed
was John Illif. He set up a ranch in
the new territory of Wyoming in 1867.
Illif won a contract to supply beef to the Union Pacific Railroad and its construction
crews. He bought $45 000 worth of steers from Charles Goodnight and sold them
for a huge profit. The profits of men such as Illif attracted many more to try their
hand at ranching on the Great Plains. Land for ranching was cheap; often it was
simply taken. Cattle ranching took place on the open range – acre after acre
of unfenced land. This was the heyday of the cowboy, but it did not last long.
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In 1867, 35 000 cattle arrived at
Abilene. By 1871 600 000 steers
a year were moving up the
Chisholm Trail. The railroad
shipped them north from Abilene,
mainly to Chicago, which
established itself as a meat
packing centre. Joseph McCoy eventually went bankrupt, and other cattle
towns, such as Elsworth, Hays and Dodge City, began to compete for the
cattle business. However, McCoy’s initiative and enterprise had been
crucial to the growth of the cattle industry. The traffic on the Chisholm
Trail later shifted to the Western Trail. This took Texan cattle to Dodge
City, which became the main Kansas cattle centre from 1875.
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Cattle could not drive themselves
northwards to the markets! They
needed the cowboys to guide
them. The 1860s to the 1880s
were the high point of the cowboy
era. Young men from many
different backgrounds, white, black
and Spanish became cowboys. Their
job was to escort the herds from Texas to the markets along the set Trails. It was a
very hard life, with low pay and cowboys were always short of sleep when on the
Long Drive. Cowboys continued to be important in the cattle industry during the
time of the Open Range on the Plains. They did the job of patrolling the edges of the
vast ranches, protecting the cattle and rounding them up when it was time for
the herd to go to market.
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