What were the cattle drives in the 1880s?

The gold boom in California in the 1850s created a demand for beef and the cash to pay for it, so very long drives were attempted. Australians began cattle drives to ports for shipment of beef to San Francisco and, after freezing methods were developed, all the way to Britain. In 1853 Italian aristocrat Leonetto Cipriani undertook a drive from St. Louis to San Francisco along the Oregon-California trail; he returned to Europe in 1855 with large profits.

During the Civil War before the Union seized the Mississippi in 1863 , Texas drove cattle throughout the states for the Confederate forces. In October, 1862, a Union naval patrol on the southern Mississippi River captured 1,500 head of Texas longhorns, which had been destined for Confederate military posts in Louisiana. The permanent loss of the main cattle supply left the Confederate armies hungry.

At the close of the war Texas had probably 5 million cattle--and no market. Late in 1865 a few cowmen tried to find a market. In 1866 there were many drives northward without a definite destination and without much financial success; also to the old but limited New Orleans market, following mostly well-established trails to the wharves of Shreveport and Jefferson (Texas).

In 1868, David Morrill Poor, a former Confederate officer from San Antonio, Texas, drove 1,100 cattle from east of San Angelo into Mexico over the Chihuahua Trail. This event, the "Great Chihuahua Cattle Drive," was the largest cattle drive attempted over that trail up to that time, but the market was much better in Kansas than in Mexico, so most drives headed north. In 1867 Joseph G.

McCoy opened a regular market at Abilene, Kans. The great cattle trails, moving successively westward, were established and trail driving boomed. In 1867 the Goodnight-Loving Trail opened up New Mexico and Colorado to Texas cattle.

By the tens of thousands they were soon driven into Arizona. In Texas itself cattle raising expanded rapidly as American tastes shifted from pork to beef. Caldwell, Dodge City, Ogallala, Cheyenne, and other towns became famous because of trail-driver patronage.

The Chisholm Trail, starting in 1865, was the most important route for cattle drives leading north from the vicinity of Ft. Worth,Texas, across Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to the railhead at Abilene, Kansas. It was about 220 miles and long generally followed the line of the ninety-eighth meridian, but never had an exact location, as different drives took somewhat different paths.

The typical drive comprised 1,500-2,500 head of cattle. The typical outfit consisted of a boss, (perhaps the owner), from ten to fifteen hands, each of whom had a string of from five to ten horses; a horse wrangler who handled the horses; and a cook, who drove the chuck wagon. The wagon carried the bedrolls; tents were considered excess luxury.

The men drove and grazed the cattle most of the day, herding them by relays at night. Ten or twelve miles was considered a good day's drive, as the cattle had to thrive on the route. They ate grass; the men had bread, meat, beans with bacon, and coffee.

The Chisholm Trail decreased in importance after 1871, when Abilene lost its preeminence as a shipping point for Texas cattle, as a result of the westward advance of settlement. Dodge City, Kansas, became the chief shipping point and another trail farther west, crossing the Red River near Doan's Store, Texas. The extension of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to Caldwell, Kansas, in 1880, however, again made the Chisholm Trail a most important route for driving Texas cattle to the North, and it retained this position until the building of additional trunk lines of railway south into Texas caused rail shipments to take the place of the former trail driving of Texas cattle north to market.

The cow towns flourished 1866-1890. The first was Abilene, Kans.