The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

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The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains
Click here to find out about the development of
the Cattle Industry
2
The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains
The Civil War
The US Army
The Railroads
The Plains Indians
Demand in the East
Goodnight Loving
The Open Range
Cow Towns
The Cowboys
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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 Goodnights
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, McCoys 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 northw
ards 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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