Chisholm Trail
The Chisholm Trail was a herd route in the United States used for driving cattle from south Texas to the loading station in Abilene , Kansas, about half a mile north .
The trail was primarily used between 1867 and 1887 to bring the cattle to the Kansas Pacific Railway terminus in Abilene, from where they were transported east. The Chisholm Trail was the western route of the so-called Texas Road (also East Shawnee Trail). It was named after Jesse Chisholm , who had set up a number of trading posts along this route before the American Civil War , which was the only infrastructure in the steppes. He himself never used the trail to drive his own cattle.
history
Because of the American Civil War , the cattle of Confederate Texas could not be delivered to their previous customers in the unionist north for several years , so the herds grew and prices fell. In 1866, the price of a beef in Texas was only $ 4 , while further north and in the eastern states it was $ 40.
In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy opened Stockyard in Abilene, Kansas. He encouraged Texas ranchers to drive their herds to his reloading points, which in the same year became the largest stockyards west of Kansas City .
OW Wheeler and his partners used the Chisholm Trail and in 1867 led a herd of 2,400 cattle to Abilene. These were the first of a total of 5 million Texan cattle to reach Kansas via the Chisholm Trail.
From 1867 to 1871 the trail ended in Abilene. Later Newton , Kansas and Wichita , Kansas served as loading yards. From 1883 to 1887, Caldwell , Kansas was the end of the trail.
In 1885 the importance of cattle drives began to decline with the construction of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad .
literature
- Sam P. Ridings: The Chisholm Trail. A history of the world's greatest cattle trail . Skyhorse Publ., New York 2015. ISBN 978-1-63220-266-6 .
- Ross M. Taylor: We were there on the Chisholm trail . Grosset & Dunlap, New York 1957.
Movies
- Elmer Clifton (Director): The Old Chisholm Trail . USA 1942.
- Howard Hawks (Director): Red River . USA 1948.
