Cattle cowboys and railroads
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Transcript of Cattle cowboys and railroads
Texas History
Unit 9
Cattle Kingdoms and Cowboys
The Cattle Trail, 1905 courtesy, Library of Congress.
Spanish Beginnings
• 1500s: Spanish had ranches firmly established in Mexico
• 1700s: Cattle moved northward to support missions in Rio Grande & San Antonio River Valleys
• Good climate & water supply
Spanish Beginnings
• First Texas Ranchers: Tejanos who brought knowledge of ranching from Mexico
•Brands—marks that made it possible to determine who owned Texas cattle
The Texas Longhorns
• Strengths:
– Thrived on native grasses
– Could endure hot/cold
– Could eat prickly pear cactus and survive on little water
– Resistant to Texas Fever
The Texas Longhorns
•Texas cattle grew during the Civil War because Union blockades made it difficult to move cattle out of state
Driving Cattle to Market
· After the Civil War, growing cities in the East increased their demand for beef.· Texas ranchers began to drive herds of longhorns hundreds of miles north to the railroads running across the country, where they were sent to Chicago to be processed. The meat was then sent out on refrigerated (ICE) trains.
Texas Cattle Trails
The Cowhand’s Life
Cowhand – responsible for driving the cattle north to the railroads
• Cowhands learned their trade from Spanish vaqueros.
Cowhand’s Gear
chaps kept rider’slegs safe
lariat(leather rope)
used to lassorunaway cattle
Wide-brimmedhat
provided protectionfrom the sun
· Cowhands had to worry about stampedes, cattle thieves, and the dry, hot weather.
· Cow towns developed near the railroads, offering cowhands hotels, saloons, and restaurants.
Abilene, Kansas (late 1800’s)
Dodge City, Kansas, 1874
"Kansas has but one Dodge City, with a broad expanse of territory sufficiently vast for an empire; we have only room for one Dodge City; Dodge, a synonym for all that is wild, reckless, and violent; Hell on the Plains."
-- A Kansas Newspaper in the 1870's
Cattle Boom
· Cattle roamed free on the plains.
Cowboys at the end of an 1897 roundup in Ward County, Texas, pose with their herd of almost 2,000 cattle.
The spread of farming, as well as harsh weather, destroyed the cattle boom by 1887.
Hundreds of miles of barbed wire were strung across the state in the 1880s, forever changing the character of the frontier and bringing a measure of management to the cattle industry.
Cattle Kingdom
Ranches, Rangers, & Cowboys
Ranching in South Texas
•Cattle Kingdom—ranches on the open range from Texas to Canada
Ranching in South Texas
•King Ranch—very important South Texas ranch
King Ranch is located in Kennedy County
Ranching in South Texas
•More than one million acres at one time
•Presently 825,000 acres
•Larger than state of Rhode Island
Ranches in the Panhandle
• Removal of Indians opened up Panhandle to ranching
• Grass & flat open land good for cattle ranching
• Ogallala Aquifer provided water
Ranches in the Panhandle
•Farming in the Panhandle expanded after the appearance of windmills.
Windmill
Cowboy Culture
•Myth: cowboys lived fearless, happy, & worry free lives roaming through rugged but gorgeous landscapes
•Fact: faced many dangers, worked long hours, and received little pay
Once railroads ran throughout Texas, the cattle drives became unnecessary.
Ranchers could now ship their product directly from Texas towns and cities
Barbed Wire Closed the Open Range and helped “fence in” Cowboys