The Chisholm Trail, 1867-1890

Of the great American cattle trails, the most famous and most significant was the one named for Jesse Chisholm. During its peaks years, from 1867 to 1884, the Chisholm Trail began with feeder trails south of San Antonio, traveled north to Fort Worth and Waco, crossed the Red River into present-day Oklahoma, and continued on into Kansas. The destination of the trail was a railroad terminal, first at Abilene, later Newton, and then Wichita, Kansas. More than eight hundred miles long, it was considered by people at the time "one of the wonders of the western world."[1]

Along the Chisholm Trail near Deanville, Texas

How did the Chisholm Trail get its start? Shortly after the Civil War, Texas cattlemen first drove their herds north and east along what they called the old Texas Road, and then into Indian Territory following the Shawnee Trail on their way to either Kansas City or Sedalia, Missouri. But the hills and woods that dotted the trail, not to mention Indians who demanded a fee for crossing their land as well as outright bandits, rendered this route virtually impossible. Because of these impediments, markets in the east as well as Texas suppliers of beef were missing an opportunity.

In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy, an Illinois farmer, recognized the problem. Beef markets in the eastern U.S. were under-supplied. Realizing the tremendous potential, McCoy bought an entire township along the Kansas Pacific Railroad and named the site Abilene. He then hired a team of promoters to travel through Texas with the news about a railhead in south-central Kansas, ready to load up Longhorns and ship them to Kansas City and beyond.[2]

Several factors conspired to bring the great cattle drives out of Texas to an end. First, railroad construction in Texas eliminated some of the need to drive cattle to Kansas. Second, ranching operations in the northern Great Plains expanded, creating new competition for Texas ranches. Finally, in 1884 Kansas legislators imposed a quarantine on cattle entering the state. As historian John R. Lovett noted, by 1890, the day of the cattle drives across Oklahoma was over.[3]

Notes

[1] Steven D. Dortch, "Chisholm Trail," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, www.okhistory.org (accessed February 15, 2018). See also T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. Updated ed. (New York: Tess Press, 2000), 557-58.

[2] John R. Lovett, "Major Cattle Trails, 1866-1889," in Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, 4th ed., Charles Robert Goins and Danney Goble, eds. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 116.

[3] Ibid. See also Edward Everett Dale, "Chisholm Trail," in Dictionary of American History, 3rd ed. Stanley I Kutler, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003), 2:158