Cattle, Cowboys, and Beef Barons

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>By the end of Civil War, as many as five million longhorn cattle, descendants of old Spanish stock, roamed wild in Texas. These tough, rangy animals sported horns with a spread of as much as eight feet. At first they were hunted only for their hides since there was no way to get them to markets in the East. With the building of the Transcontinental Railroads, it became possible to transport these cattle to the eastern market that had developed a taste for beef at a time when the effects of war had depleted eastern herds. Beef, even tough wild beef, was in great demand.<BR></P> <P>In 1866, a large herd was driven from Texas to Sedalia, Missouri, which was then the far-western station of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad. This proved a poor route as it traced alternately through forests where cattle were lost and through farmland that farmers understandably did not want trampled and grazed. There were also bushwhackers and cattle thieves to contend with. But the era of the long cattle drive had begun.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>As the railroads extended farther west, the route to a station shifted to the open, relatively unpopulated prairies of Kansas and Oklahoma. Here the cattle had good grazing, fewer bandits roamed, and the drives did not encounter so many farmers protecting their crops. As the railroad passed through Abilene, Kansas, in 1867, an entrepreneurial Illinois livestock dealer, Joseph G. McCoy, saw the potential for making that tiny log-cabin settlement into a booming cattle town. McCoy bought 250 acres near the railroad and laid out a stockyard, outbuildings, a hotel, and a bank. Hardy plains pioneers such as the half-Cherokee John Chisholm scouted trails through Indian territory from south Texas to Kansas and eventually Wyoming. The Chisholm Trail ran from central Texas to Abilene, Kansas, a distance of 500 miles. The Western Trail to Dodge City was slightly shorter, while the Goodnight-Loving Trail looped from central Texas into New Mexico and then straight north to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a marathon 700-mile trek.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Men as wild and tough as the longhorns were hired to round-up and drive these ownerless Texas cattle on the “long drive,” the slow, dangerous journey to the stations. During the decades following the Civil War, over 40,000 men were employed to herd cattle in the West. These “Cowboys” were usually in their twenties and came from many backgrounds. Black, white, Mexican, and Indian cowboys tended and protected the wild herds, while riding cowponies that were often only slightly less scrawny and wild than the longhorns. Contrary to the Hollywood film image, being a cowboy involved hard work, low pay, constant exposure to the elements, and a notable absence of many things we now consider necessities such as bathing, a change of clothes, and a diet more diverse than boiled beef and beans.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Cowboys came to that occupation for varied reasons. Many were Civil War veterans, while some were immigrants direct from Europe. In the south, cattle raising and care of livestock was an occupation often designated to slaves. After the war, many young African-American men drifted west and used their knowledge of animal husbandry to get hired on as cowboys. Indians were already living in the region and knew the country and how to survive. Texas had a substantial population of Mexicans who had remained after Mexico lost Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California to the United States; hence the incorporation of Spanish terms such as rodeo, bronco, lasso, and corral into the cowboy lexicon. Building the Transcontinental Railroad had employed thousands of men, many of whom had no desire to return to the industrial centers of the East when construction was complete. Some turned to cattle work as a permanent profession, but for many it was simply a means to save up a stake in order to homestead. Dangers encountered by the cowboys on these drives included attack by Indians, stampedes, disease, and accidents. With no medical treatment available, getting sick or being hurt often ended in death. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Herds of 1,000 to 10,000 animals were driven over the vast open ranges of prairie. Altogether, 4,000,000 head of longhorn cattle were driven north from 1866 to 1888. High prices for beef also encouraged raising cattle in Kansas by bringing in Hereford and other “blooded” strains from the east. These cattle produced more and better beef than their sinewy Texas counterparts, but they were not as well adapted to the region. The Texas cattle carried a tick-borne disease that infected the eastern cattle. The disease produced no symptoms in the longhorns, but it was devastating to the eastern breeds. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Kansas ranchers of blooded stock complained to the state legislature about infected Texas cattle. In 1872, the legislature drew a quarantine line south of Abilene, Kansas, beyond which it was illegal to move Texas cattle. John McCoy moved his operation to Wichita, Kansas, which then had a four-year run as a roaring cattle town along with the towns of Caldwell and Ellsworth. In 1876, the quarantine line was redrawn south of Wichita, and the long-drive cattle trade moved west to Dodge City, Kansas, and north to Cheyenne, Wyoming. These rough outposts on the frontier welcomed the cattle drives and catered to the cowboys for the dollars they brought into the community. Cowboys were young men with no personal attachment to these towns, however, which often meant trouble. Lawmen such as Wyatt Earp and James B. (Wild Bill) Hickok were hired to keep the peace. As the long drives moved west, they left in their wake prosperous farming and ranching communities and energetic, entrepreneurial towns. The populations of Kansas and Nebraska doubled several times in the last half of the nineteenth century, greatly due to an influx of capital from the cattle drives.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>At the western stations, cattle were loaded onto railroad cars and shipped live to their destinations in the East. Many of the animals perished on the trip and the remainder lost weight, which reduced their value. In 1869, a Chicago meatpacker, G.H. Hammond, shipped beef slaughtered in Chicago to Boston in an air-cooled rail car. This was the beginning of a new era of food production and distribution in the United States. Perishable foods no longer had to be produced on local farms. Meats, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products could be raised in the areas best suited for their growth and shipped by rail to markets hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Within a decade after Hammond’s air-cooled car, Gustavus Swift developed a true refrigerated car, which revolutionized the meatpacking business. Now the cattle were transported to stockyards in Kansas City or Chicago where they were slaughtered, and the meat was shipped east under optimum conditions. “Beef Barons” such as Swift and Armour developed an efficient, factory-type meatpacking industry that employed thousands directly and supported other businesses such as feed wholesalers and leather tanners indirectly, thus becoming critically important in their regional economies. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>The end of the open range in the late 1880s spelled the end of the long drive. In addition to shipping cattle out, railroads brought homesteaders and sheepherders to the plains. Homesteaders plowed up the prairie and laced the plains with barbed wire, invented by Joseph Glidden in 1873. Cattle ranchers responded by fencing off huge tracts for their own use. Sometimes homesteaders “squatted” on land claimed by cattle ranchers, which caused friction. Conflicts between ranchers and homesteaders over land and water rights became commonplace. <BR></P> <P>To cattle ranchers, sheepherders were even less welcome than homesteaders. Sheep grazed the grass to the roots and contributed to overgrazed, depleted ranges. Ethnic and religious prejudice added to tension with sheepherders. In the southwest, shepherds were usually Mexican or Indian, while in Nevada and the northwest they were often Mormons or Basque immigrants from the region along the French-Spanish border. With these new elements on the plains, violent range wars sometimes broke out as cattle drovers, homesteaders, and sheepherders found themselves at odds. Eventually land and water use was worked out between ranchers and farmers through laws and agreements, and sheepherders took their flocks to marginal and high altitude ranges that were unsuitable for cattle but where sheep did well. Land use was everywhere restricted, and the great sweep of open country that had once characterized the West became only a memory.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>The terrible winters of 1885-86 and 1886-87 followed by a decade of desert-dry, scorching summers killed thousands of cattle on the Texas ranges. As a final blow to the profitability of the long drive, the Indians levied ever-higher charges on drives that crossed their land. To counter these developments, railroads branched from the main transcontinental lines into Texas and Oklahoma making it possible for cattle drovers to deliver their cattle to a local destination. All these factors combined to end the era of the long cattle drive by the mid-1880s. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Mexican ranchers had developed ranching techniques over many years that were adopted by Texans and then by Great Plains cattlemen and cowboys. Ranchers bred heftier, blooded stock and fenced them into controlled ranges where they could be fed, watered, and protected. Herds were restricted in size to avoid overgrazing the dry prairie. Cattle raising became a regular business. Easterners and even Europeans looking for speculative, profitable ventures began investing in cattle ranches, which had changed from an entrepreneurial-type enterprise of families or partners to a business dominated by urban investors. <BR></P> <P>Sometimes big ranchers fenced off enormous tracts of public grazing land at the expense of smaller ranchers. Small ranchers would cut the fences to allow their cattle access to grass. This led to the Fence-Cutters’ War of 1883-1884 that claimed several ranchers’ lives. Texas finally passed legislation that outlawed fence cutting. The occupation of cowboy became a permanent, stationary job rather than transient contract work. But the dangers, excitement, and stories of the West remained in the national consciousness as romantic folklore.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>As with the farmers and sheepherders, ranchers slowly learned to live with one another either through mutual practices or, if all else failed, through legal action. To increase their political leverage with respect to the railroads and cattle buyers, the ranchers organized into groups, such as the Wyoming Stock-Growers’ Association, in order to make their collective voice heard in the state capitals. From the long drive to the legislature, the cattle business had come a long way.<BR></P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>