Cattle Trails

More Cattle Trails

• Search Western Trails for More Cattle Trails
• Cattle Trails of the West - Colorado Historical Society
• Dodge City Cattle Trails and Tales - Kansas Heritage Center
• People of the Trails - Boot Hill Museum

"Head'em up and move'em out!" Nothing symbolizes the excitement, the vigor, or the promise of the American West better than the cattle drives that swept across the center of the nation starting in the 1860s.

The first big cattle ranches appeared in south Texas, where vast, open rangeland and good grass were ideal for stock growing. By the end of the Civil War hundreds of thousands of longhorns roamed the rangeland of south Texas, untended, wild, and available, for the taking. The burgeoning number of cows coincided with the development of the railroad lines far to the north, vital transportation for getting cattle to the eastern markets. Beef prices were enticingly high, so the Texas ranchers began driving their herds to Kansas for shipment back east. Cattle stretched out along the trail for two miles, with savvy lead steers at the front. Between about 1866 and 1886, more than ten million cattle moved along the Shawnee, Chisholm, Goodnight-Loving, Western, Montana, and other trails -- and into the folklore of the West.

Cowboys sitting in front of a chuck wagon at night Courtesy Colorado Historical Society

Jesse Chisholm opened one of the first, and most famous, trails north from Texas, first to Abilene in 1866, later to Ellsworth and Dodge City. By the late 1870s Charles Goodnight forged a trail farther west, going north along the Pecos River in New Mexico and on into Colorado along the Front Range to Denver. On this Goodnight–Loving route drovers often spent four months and 1200 miles on the trail, eventually going all the way to Wyoming and Montana, where the cattle were sold as breeding stock. The routes were difficult and dangerous, not nearly as romantic as later pictured in movies and popular songs. Trail life meant dust-filled air, endless working days and nights, long waterless stretches of trail, and danger from lightning, rattlesnakes, and stampedes, all for the bosses' profits. Cowboys commonly made about $100 for a drive. But the adventure, comradeship and self-sufficiency made up for the low pay.

Chores perfected in these early days of the long drives, such as branding, were adopted throughout the West and are still used today. Branding identified ownership in a freewheeling, often lawless, society. Here are the Becker sisters, branding a cow on the San Luis Valley Cattle Ranch in Colorado in 1884.

Towns and railroad lines, particularly in Kansas, competed for the cattle business as the tracks stretched farther west. This map depicts the various trails such as the Abilene, Ellsworth, and Dodge City Trail along the two major railroads, the Union Pacific/Kansas Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. Both the railroads and the towns sent out advance men to the trail boss to extol their virtues--good pastures, livestock pens, lodging and entertainment for the drovers.

Towns at the end of the trail could be quite exciting when the cowboys finished their drive. Dodge City, at times the home of Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday, was especially famous, lasting as a railhead for ten years, far longer than most towns. Articles from the Dodge City Times from 1876 and 1877 paint a vivid picture of the effect of the arrival of several hundred thousand cattle and their drovers.

An article published on June 9, 1877, described an incident involving Bat Masterson, soon to be elected town sheriff: "Last Wednesday was a lively day…. Two hundred cattle men in the city; … merchants happy, and money flooding the city, is a condition of affairs that could not continue in Dodge very long without an eruption, and that is the way it was last Wednesday. Robert Gilmore was making a talk for himself in a rather emphatic manner, to which Marshal Deger took exceptions and started for the dog house with him. Bobby walked very leisurely —so that Larry felt it necessary to administer a few paternal kicks in the rear. This act was interrupted by Bat Masterson, who wound his arm affectionately around the Marshal's neck and let the prisoner escape. Deger then grappled with Bat, … calling upon the bystanders to take the offender's gun…. Joe Mason appeared … at this critical moment and took the gun. But Masterson would not surrender yet, and came near getting hold of a pistol from among several which were strewed around over the sidewalk, but half a dozen Texas men came to the Marshal's aid and gave him a chance to draw his gun and beat Bat over the head until the blood flew …. Bat Masterson seemed possessed of extraordinary strength, and every inch of the way was closely contested, but the city dungeon was reached at last, and in he went. If he had got hold of his gun before going in there would have been a general killing…. Next day Judge Frost administered the penalty of the law by assessing twenty-five and costs to Bat … and five to Bobby. The boys are all at liberty now."

As the number of cattle raised on natural grass increased, cattle became a boom industry, but it turned out to be self-limited by nature. J.M. Wilson, with the Colorado Cattle Growers Association, saw into the future in 1876: "When we get more cattle than the grass will fatten … the business is ruined…Already large portions of our Territory … have become eaten out and no one can turn their stock out in the fall with any assurance that they will go through the winter with safety, unless they are fed …. These are the facts which the cattlemen know to be true, and ‘tis well for us to ponder over them and regulate our business accordingly." Increasing settlement, closing the open range, and the horrific winter of 1884-1885, with record blizzards and cold temperature killing millions of cattle, including all in western Kansas, dealt the final blow to the historic trails. The legacy of the livestock drives lives on in much smaller herds trailed in spring and fall to and from mountain pastures in Colorado and Wyoming.