The Cattle Industry

• When did the growth of the cattle industry start?

  After the Civil War because railroads provided a way to move cattle worth $5 a head in Texas to the industrial cities of the North which would pay $40 a head
• What is the timeline of cattle trails and cow towns?

  Quarantine laws block Texan cattle from Missouri in 1855 and Kansas in 1859, during the Civil War 1861- 1865 Texans fight for Confederacy and cattle herds run wild so there were 5 million cows by 1865, beef in high demand in northern towns and cities but drives to Sedalia blocked because of Texas fever, 1867 railroad reaches Abilene, Kansas where Joesph McCoy sets up the first cow town, 35,000 cows driven to Abilene, 1870s beef bonanza where investors pile in to cattle industry from around the world and the rise of cattle barons
• When were the qurantine laws?

  1855- farmers in Missouri and Kansas where cows had no immunity to Texas fever blocked long drives to Sedalia and St Louis, Texas cattle were kept out of quarantine zones which were the settled areas of Missouri and Kansas
• When did long drives begin?

  The long drives from Texas to the east had been happening since the 1830s. The big development was the railroad extending west
• What was the first cow town?

  Abilene. As the railroad moved further west, it created new railheads outside quarantine zones. Joseph McCoy was the first to see the potential of Abilene so he built stockyards and hotels, built a new railroad spur for loading the cattle onto railroad trucks, extended the Chisholm Trail up to Abilene agreeing passage through Indian Territory, spent $5000 promoting the new route in Texas
• What was the Goodnight-Loving Trail?

  Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving realised there was another market for Texan cattle which was new settlements in the West. The first trail in 1866 was to Fort Sumner where the government had failed to get enough supplies for the Navajo reservations- 800 cattle sold for $12,000 which was 4x the price of cattle in Texas. In 1868, Goodnight's trail extended up to Colorado (booming mining towns) and Wyoming to the Union Pacific Railroad. Goodnight's successes meant other cattlemen started to drive cattle to Wyoming and Wyoming's cattle ranches began to grow
• Why was the Goodnight-Loving trail significant?

  It recognised new markets in the West which helped grow the Wyoming cattle industry
• Who started Plains ranching?

  Denver, Colorado, was not on the railroad until 1870 and it was hard to get supplies there as you either had to go over the Rocky Mountains or across the Plains. Iliff saw the opportunity to raise cattle on the Plains and began ranching near Denver in 1866. By 1870 he had a herd of 26,000 cattle on the Plains and a ranch stretching over 16,000 acres. Iliff became Denver's first millionaire by selling his beef to booming mining towns. Native American reservations and railroad worker gangs
• Why was John Iliff significant?

  He was the first to raise cattle on the Plains. The start of ranching on the open range of the Great Plains
• What were cattle barons?

  Rich, powerful men who controlled the cattle industry
• What were cowboys?

  Tough loners who worked hard and had a wild lifestyle. They were mostly young, single men. There were black American, Native American, Spanish, Mexican and white American cowboys. Many were former soldiers or drifters and some were criminals on the run
• What were cowboys like?

  Tough, hardworking and often hard-drinking. On long trails they could ride for between 12 and 24 hours a day in all weathers. Cowboys on the same cattle drive often worked miles apart so life could be lonely
• What did cowboys wear?


  The hat (Stetson) gave protection from the sun, rain and cold, a saddle was a cowboy's most important possession, high-heeled boots meant their feet couldn't slip through the stirrups, spurs were worn at all times, the bandana was pulled over the nose and mouth to give protection from dust when driving cattle, a lariat or lasso was used to catch cattle, chaps protected cowboys' legs from vegetation and the weather
• What were cowboys like on trails?

  Work was seasonal from spring round-up to the long drive in autumn, work included rounding up, branding and driving cattle hundreds of miles, they also looked out for sick and injured cattle, they started fast then slowed to about 20km a day for grazing, dangers included stampeding cattle, wild animals, crossing rivers and quicksand, rustlers, hostile Native Americans and extreme weather, they slept in open air and cooked on campfires, in their free time they would visit saloons and brothels in cow towns
• What were cowboys like on ranches?


  Work was year-round and full-time but fewer were needed, work included rounding up, branding and driving cattle to market but over much smaller distances, they also checked ranch boundaries, mended fences and looked out for sick and injured cattle, dangers were fewer than on trails but rustlers, wild animals and hostile Native Americans were still threats, they slept in bunkhouses and used cookhouses, drinking, gambling, guns and knives were banned so many struggled to adapt to this lifestyle
• Why did ranchers and homesteaders have conflict (SUMMARISED)?


  As development of the Plains increased so did the rivalry between homesteaders and ranchers over how the Plains should be used. Ranchers needed lots of public land that homesteaders wanted to claim for themselves
• How did ranchers block homesteaders?

  Filing homestead claims themselves to all the parts of the range that homesteaders might be interested in, buying and fencing just enough land to block off access to other plots, taking homesteaders to court over rights to the land knowing that homesteaders were too poor to pay court fees, ranchers bought railroad sections and fenced them to block access to public lands, railroad companies and public land were mixed in checkerboard sections
• Why did ranchers need public land?

  Open-range ranching needed a lot of land on order for large cattle herds to roam around and have enough to eat. Federal law said everyone could pasture livestock on public land for free so that is what the ranchers did. They divided up the open range between ranches and only bought a few plots here and there. The problems came when homesteaders began filing claims to turn 160 acre plots of public land into homesteads
• What issues did fencing cause?

  Farmers said ranchers should fence their land to stop cattle roaming onto crops, ranchers said their cattle had a right to roam and that fencing was the farmers' responsibility and they should not harm the cattle, arguments over fencing ended up in state court cases, outside the courts tension between ranchers and homesteaders was common which sometimes turned into open conflict, rivalry between cattlemen and sheep farmers
• Why did cattlemen and sheep farmers have conflict?

  Rivalry between cattlemen and sheep farmers led to range wars. Both sides relied on public land for grazing so when cattle ranchers used wire to fence off pastures sheep farmers would cut the wire. Cattlemen led raids killing hundreds of sheep