C ATTLE D RIVES ON TEXAS T RAILS.

C ATTLE A S B IG B USINESS Cattle drives helped Texas ranchers because raising cattle was inexpensive. The cattle could roam on the range. The problem was, ranchers in Texas could only sell their cattle for about $3 or $4 a piece. In the eastern U.S., however, cattle sold for a lot more, almost ten times as much. The question now was: How could the Texas ranchers get their cattle to the eastern U.S?

T HE TRANSPORTATION ISSUE Texas didn’t have a whole lot of railroads in Ranchers in Texas began doing what Spanish and Mexican ranchers had been doing for a while: they hired cowhands. Cowhands were people that were hired to help move cattle over trails to other states to be sold. Cowhands worked, ate and slept outside. They worked through the heat of the summer and the freezing temperatures of the winter. They had to fight to keep people from stealing their cattle and they had to worry about stampedes. A stampede is when a “herd of cattle becomes frightened and runs wild.” (pg. 275)

W HERE THE DRIVES STARTED AND ENDED Cattle drives began in Texas towns like Fort Worth and San Angelo. They ended in towns that had railroads like Sedalia, Missouri and Dodge City, Kansas.

O NCE THEY GOT THERE … Once the cattle and cowhands made it to railroad towns, they sold the cattle. Once the cattle were sold, the buyers shipped the cattle east on trains. With the money that the ranchers earned selling the cattle, they bought supplies.

T HE T RAILS Some of the trails were named for people who were the first to travel them…

T HE G OODNIGHT -L OVING TRAIL Named after Charles Goodnight

T HE C HISHOLM T RAIL Named after Jesse Chisholm. Elizabeth “Lizzie” Johnson also traveled along the long trails raising cattle.

O THER NEEDS Ranchers also needed help from strong workhorses. Some cowhands also trained horses, like Johanna July.

S PANISH W ORDS ON T EXAS T RAILS Because Texans learned about trail driving and ranching from Mexican ranchers, it should come as no surprise that some of the words used on the trails were from the Spanish language. Some words stayed the same like rodeo and corral. Some words changed. For example, rancho became ranch and la reata (a rope to catch cattle) became lariat. Leather pants worn by vaqueros were called chaparreras. These later became known as chaps.

F ENCING O N T HE O PEN R ANGE Successful barbed wire was invented for the first time by a man named Joseph Farwell Glidden. Barbed wire is a twisted wire with very sharp points. Some people did not want to put barbed wire up, but some did. Some ranchers wanted to keep roaming cattle off of their land because the cattle were eating their crops. Others wanted to keep their cattle safe.

P ROBLEMS WITH THE FENCES While the fences were good for some things, they also created problems. Fencing sometimes blocked off creeks and lakes so cattle had to way to get water. The solution to this problem was to build windmills. The windmills pumped water that was underground up to the ground level and into a tank where cattle could drink it. Fencing also blocked some of the trails that the cattle traveled on. Fencing closed off most of the open range and because of this and the fact that railroads were being built up, the long trails became unnecessary and were gone forever.