Chisholm Trail

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little somethin' extra in the delivery. Way back in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, Spain brought Iberian range cattle into Texas — the very progenitors of what the world would come to know as the Texas longhorn. Those cattle took one look at the rich grasslands spread across this land and decided they were never leaving.

They thrived, they roamed, they multiplied. By the time of the Texas Revolution — that's 1835 and 1836 — vast Mexican ranchos already stretched across the Rio Grande Valley, worked by the vaqueros, which is the Spanish word for cowboys, and those vaqueros were illustrious. That tradition was established long before most folks think the story even begins.

Come 1860, cattle ranching didn't just exist in this region — it dominated land use entirely. Now hold that image in your mind, because the Civil War is about to change everything. When the war ended, demand for beef rose dramatically.

A longhorn standing in a Texas pasture might fetch you two or three dollars. That same animal, walked north to a midwestern railroad center like Kansas City or Chicago, was suddenly worth thirty or forty dollars. You do that arithmetic and you understand exactly what happened next.

Area ranchers, fully aware of the longhorn's legendary stamina, united. They were going to drive their cattle north to the frontier railroad terminals at Abilene and Dodge City. The Rio Grande itself was the southernmost point where cattle were gathered for the drive.

From there the route pushed north through Austin, through Fort Worth, through Red River Station, and up into Oklahoma. It was there that these Texas feeder trails connected to something already in existence — the original Chisholm Trail, two hundred and twenty miles of it, running into Kansas. That trail had been established in 1865 by an Indian trader and guide named Jesse Chisholm.

Before long, the entire route — every feeder trail, every dusty stretch from the Rio Grande to the Kansas line — became widely known under that same name: the Chisholm Trail. By the late 1870s, an estimated ten million cattle had been driven north along it. Ten million.

And then, as tends to happen with things that seem unstoppable, quarantines drastically curtailed the trail's use. Ten million cattle, a continent's worth of dust and hoofbeats, and in the end it was paperwork that slowed it down. That's Texas for you.

What the marker says

Iberian range cattle, progenitors of the Texas longhorn, were brought into Texas by Spain in the 1600s and 1700s. The cattle thrived on the area's rich grasslands and roamed throughout Texas. At the time of the Texas Revolution (1835-36) vast Mexican ranchos with their illustrious vaqueros (Spanish for cowboys) were an established tradition in the Rio Grande Valley. By 1860 cattle ranching dominated land use in the region. Demand for beef rose dramatically after the Civil War. Longhorn cattle worth $2 and $3 in Texas sold for $30 and $40 in midwestern railroad centers such as Kansas City and Chicago. Area ranchers, aware of the longhorn's stamina, united to drive their cattle to frontier railroad terminals in Abilene and Dodge City. The Rio Grande was the southernmost point at which cattle were gathered for the drive north through Austin, Fort Worth, Red River station and into Oklahoma. There the trail joined the original 220-mile Chisholm Trail into Kansas established by Indian trader/guide Jesse Chisholm in 1865. The entire route and its feeder trails soon became widely known as the Chisholm Trail. An estimated 10 million cattle were driven north along the Chisholm Trail by the late 1870s when use of the trail was drastically curtailed by quarantines.