Why Was Ther a National Market for Beef, and How Did Demand Affect the Tewxas Cattle

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Cattle Ranchers

Big horns, big ranches, and even bigger legends.

The history of Texas cattle ranching is intertwined with the history of the state itself. Ranchers have shaped the social, economical, and political identity of Texas since the 15th century. They continue to play a vital role today.

Other states are carved or built-in; Texas grew from hide and horn. Bertha Hart Nance, 1932

The Roots of a Texas Ranching Tradition

The early on roots of Texas ranching began with colonial conquest. In 1493, Christopher Columbus made his second voyage to the island of Hispaniola. He brought with him the commencement Castilian cattle and the precursors of the famed Texas longhorn.

Through the 16th and 17th centuries, cattle ranching continued to spread north through Spanish Mexico and into the land at present known equally Texas. The outset cattle raising in Texas appeared in the Rio Grande Valley. By 1680, there were several thousand cattle recorded in the El Paso region.The primeval ranches were those of Castilian missionaries.By the mid-18th century, these were joined by competing private ranches. Vaqueros were the first cowhands on these early ranches. About vaqueros were from lowercastas — socio-racial classes used past the Spanish government — likemestizo(of American Indian and Spanish beginnings),mulatto (of Spanish and African beginnings), American Indian, or African. They worked as independent contractors, owning their own horses, saddles, and ropes just remaining unbound to ahaciendaor apatron unless they chose to be.

The Spanish crown saw an opportunity in the growing number of cattle in the region. In 1778, the crown imposed the contentiousFondo de Mestenos (Mustang Taxation) on all unbranded cattle and horses. Cattle drives out of Texas likewise began at this time, mostly to provide military rations of beef. Written records from 1779 suggest that cattle were driven to Louisiana to feed Spanish soldiers fighting against the British in the American Revolution. The arrival of the cattle remains unconfirmed, simply it would have been the commencement-ever drive out of Texas.

The Mustang Tax was revoked in 1795, and drives spread more rapidly to new markets. Equally a consequence, at that place was a major decline in cattle by the turn of the century. This was made worse past the turmoil of the Mexican State of war of Independence beginning in 1810. By the finish of the war in 1821, the Castilian ranching economy had effectively dissolved. The state of war's stop besides saw the institution of the Austin Colony, led by Stephen F. Austin. Anglo American settlers were attracted by the availability of newly "empty" land for planting and cattle ranching. Over fourth dimension, their eastern cattle bred with Spanish cattle and the Texas Longhorn was born.

By the 1830s, settlers had blended eastern ranching techniques with those of their Spanish-Mexican predecessors. Cattle and beefiness were abundant in the Colony.Over the next decade, the upheaval of the Texas Revolution and Mexican-American State of war left large quantities of land and cattle abandoned by Mexican ranchers. American settlers began to spread into arid northern and western Texas, and the longhorn went with them. Through the '40s and '50s, the Texas ranching economy took off.

Land grants were essential to the growth of cattle ranching in Texas, starting time under Castilian rule in the eighteenth century. In 1821, the Castilian crown began offering large areas of land in the due north for settlement past foreign American emigrants. By 1835, forty-ane grants were made to country agents, or empresarios, who settled hundreds of Anglo-American families on Texas state. This map, created in 1835, shows colonies and land grants in Mexican Texas. Map past J.H. Young, S.A. Mitchell (Mitchell & Hinman), Philadelphia, 1835. Image courtesy Library of Congress Geography and Map Segmentation Washington, D.C.

New Land, Expanding Markets

When the United States annexed Texas in 1845, it distributed public lands for railroads and settlement. This expanded new markets for Texas cattle.

Land was arable and economic demand was growing. This led to the ascent of the "cowboy organisation" of Texas ranching that has get instilled in American legend. Ranching required open up ranges, periodic roundups and cattle branding, and management of cattle on horseback. Cowhands lived meagerly, splitting their time on the range and in small line shacks at the ranch. Over-state drives were most of import of all. They were essential to moving big herds to markets across the South.

The Texas longhorn was uniquely suited to this fashion of ranching. Lean and sturdy, it was self-sufficient on the range and could withstand long, hard drives. These included drives to Cherry-red River ports for shipment to New Orleans, which had remained an important market place since colonists' arrival. The domestic cattle economy was growing, as well. Local markets emerged in cities such as Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston. With the expansion of railways in other parts of the state, cattle were gradually driven west to gilded fields in California. Drives also went due north to Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, where beef was packed and distributed to northeastern urban markets. The Shawnee Trail was essential to this showtime push button northward. The trail had been used for drives as early as the 1840s and followed routes established by American Indians, traders, missionaries, armed forces, and pioneer settlers for years. The trail passed from Austin through Waco and Dallas and due north to St. Louis and other Missouri cities. The 1850s saw an outbreak of Spanish Fever, a deadly and highly contagious affliction spread amongst cattle by ticks. Use of the Shawnee Trail slowly declined as a event of fears of the disease and because civil war the post-obit decade.

As the new system of ranching took off, cowboys had to spend days or even weeks on the open up range or cattle trail and needed mobile kitchens that could travel with them. The solution was the chuck wagon - a wagon outfitted with a "chuck box" containing drawers and shelves for storing supplies and could fold out into a work surface. This photograph shows a group of cowboys taking a break for a meal on the range, their chuck wagon behind them. Paradigm courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Chisholm Trail and a Boom in Beef

By the get-go of the Civil War in 1861, the United States had developed a national demand for beef. The state looked to Texas ranches to provide.

During the state of war, a federal blockade of the Mississippi River closed access to longtime cattle markets in New Orleans. The war also devastated much of the South and its local markets. These factors led to an glut of cattle in Texas. At the same time, at that place was a surge in demand from northern cities. By the end of the war, a Texas steer bought for six to 10 dollars could be sold for thirty to forty dollars in the northeast. The golden historic period of the Texas longhorn had arrived.

Steamships were a relatively inefficient means of transport, and a robust railway system hadn't yet developed in Texas. Concerns over Spanish Fever persisted in the North, prompting the enactment of cattle quarantines by Missouri and Kansas. All the same, national demand was loftier and northern markets were lucrative. In 1867, Illinois businessman Joseph G. McCoy appealed to the Kansas Pacific Railway to plant a stockyard and cattle market in Abilene, Kansas. This marketplace was just outside of the state's regulated quarantine area, along what would become the major route of the Texas longhorn. Scot-Cherokee trader Jesse Chisholm had used this road since 1864 to ship goods from Wichita to Indian camps across the Southern Plains.

Following McCoy's entreatment in 1867, the commencement cattle drive forth the trail delivered over 2,000 cattle to Abilene. The route eventually came to be known equally the Chisholm Trail. It ran due north from San Antonio to various Kansas "cattle towns," small settlements at the intersection of trails and railroads whose economies depended heavily on the cattle economy. The Chisholm Trail was critical in bringing Texas cattle to markets in the Northward by 1870; at that place were near 15 one thousand thousand beefiness cattle nationwide.

Conditions on cattle trails were unpredictable and treacherous. Dangers included harsh weather, cattle thieves, difficult river crossings, stampedes, and conflicts with American Indians. These dangers, combined with the sheer number of cattle beingness driven at once, meant that steer needed to exist rugged and relatively self-sufficient. The hardy longhorn was better-equipped for these conditions than other "higher-form" breeds, but it was too lean to provide proficient beef. Steer transported directly to market place went to canneries, where the lowest-quality meat was processed. Some stock raisers responded to this problem by driving their cattle north in the winters, to the colder climates of Colorado or Wyoming, where they could be fattened earlier going on to sale.

The primary route of the Chisholm Trail began in San Antonio and followed the older Shawnee Trail through Austin and Waco, then continued on to Carmine River Station. From there, information technology split toward various Kansas railheads including Abilene, Ellsworth, and Junction City. The Trail was non a unmarried route. Instead, it was made upwards of many smaller feeder trails branching out through Texas. Paradigm courtesy Texas Historical Commission

People of the Ranch, Range, and Trail

In the American imagination, the archetype cowboy is a tough-talking outsider who looks like John Wayne. In reality, the Texas ranch, range, and trail were home to a diverse network of cowhands, men and women alike.

The vaqueros had been herding and driving cattle and wild horses for hundreds of years before Anglo American ranchers arrived in Texas. But they didn't disappear. Instead, they became essential to the growth and modernization of a national industry. By the mid-19th century, vaqueros were and then renowned for their skills that the cattleman Richard Male monarch traveled to United mexican states to recruit entire families to work on his Texas ranch. These families became known asLos Kineños, Male monarch'due south people. Through generations of service, they revolutionized the cattle and horse breeding business and helped build the King Ranch into the fable it is today.

African Americans were amid some of the earliest cowhands on Texas ranches. In 1840, 62-percent of Coastal Prairies taxpayers who owned 100 or more cattle were enslavers. Some historians believe that most ranching labor of the period was performed by enslaved Black cowhands. Despite this, some Black cowboys were able to feel a relatively greater caste of equity on the open range. A number of them, such equally Daniel Webster Wallace, even purchased their own ranches post-obit emancipation in 1865. A formerly enslaved woman from San Antonio, Julia Blanks lived with her married man on the Adams Ranch in the Frio Valley. Blanks assisted with roundups, planted crops, raised animals, and cooked big meals during brandings. Her daughters took after her she afterwards recalled, "My oldest girl used to take the identify of a cowboy, and put her hair upward in her hat. And ride! My goodness, she loved to ride."

Blanks was far from the only woman to work on a ranch. The wife of legendary rancher Charles Goodnight, Molly Goodnight became known as the "Mother of the Panhandle." The couple founded the JA Ranch in Palo Duro Canyon, where Molly hosted parties for cowhands, cared for them, and taught them to read.She also led efforts to conserve over-hunted bison. The Goodnight Buffalo Ranch somewhen grew to over 200 bison, and Molly even had a bison herd under her own brand, Flying T. Johanna July was a Black Seminolevaquera born in Mexico and raised in Brackettville, Texas. Growing upwards on her family'due south ranch in the Rio Grande Valley, July learned to hunt, fish, and raise stock. She took over management of the family's livestock and horses when her father died, and she worked in the business for the rest of her life. Margaret Borland was the first woman to lead a cattle drive. Later the death of her husband in 1867, Borland became the sole owner and managing director of their large Victoria ranch and viii,000 longhorns. Inside half-dozen years, she had grown that number to 10,000 cattle. In 1873, Borland led 2,500 longhorns, her iii children, and several cowhands upwards the Chisholm Trail to Kansas, becoming the first-ever female person trail boss.

Daniel Webster "fourscore John" Wallace was built-in into slavery in 1860. Post-obit emancipation, he left the Fayette County farm of his former enslavers and sought work as a cowboy. Wallace honed his skills as the right paw to rancher Clay Mann before purchasing his ain cattle herd and multiple properties in Mitchell Canton. When Wallace died in 1939, he was a respected fellow member of the Texas ranching community and the possessor of sixteen properties, including a ranch his family however owns and operates today. Public domain image retrieved from the Texas State Historical Clan

Adapting to Modern Industry

Past the 1880s, national infrastructure was irresolute and industrialism was on the ascension. Texas'south cattle ranching economy needed to evolve in order to survive.

The Texas longhorn no longer ruled the beefiness economy. Tick-borne illness continued to spread, and there were increased restrictions on the transport of cattle between states. Ranchers in and outside of Texas had begun crossbreeding their own steer. About notable was Richard King, whose King Ranch produced the Santa Gertrudis, the first authenticated U.Due south. brood. Texas's railroads expanded, reducing the need for the long drives, and longhorns' sharp horns made them unsuited for tightly packed trains.

The open up ranges were too changing. The nail of the '70s and '80s led to overstocking and overgrazing, resulting in the depletion of pastures.Growing tensions with Eastern settlers encouraged cattle ranchers to begin enclosing large areas of land with wire. This new enclosure system became fifty-fifty more than widespread with the introduction of Glidden ii-point spinous wire in 1874. So, ii devastating blizzards struck in the winter of 1886. "The Bully Dice-Up" killed huge numbers of cattle and was a devastating blow to ranchers.

Furthermore, the Chicago meatpacking syndicate threatened to monopolize the industry and control market prices. Some stockmen attempted to avoid this problem past creating packing and refrigeration plants in Texas. Other producers, like John Lytle and C.C. Slaughter, tried to start syndicates of their own. These failed, however, and Chicago packers eventually prevailed over the smaller Texas contest. As a solution, stockmen Murdo Mackenzie and John Lytle joined two rival associations into one lobbying group. In 1906, the National Live Stock Clan and American Stock Growers' Clan merged to become the American National Alive Stock Association.After a decade-and-a-half of pocket-sized legislative gains, the Packers and Stockyards Act was finally passed in 1921. The Deed ensured fair competition for ranchers, farmers, and consumers past regulating payment, investigating fraudulent practices, and prohibiting monopolies within the livestock manufacture.It was a major step forward and crucial to preserving Texas ranching through the mod era.

In 1875, the Texas Land Legislature set aside over 3,000,000 acres of country in the Panhandle as payment to the Capitol Syndicate of Chicago, the key investors in a new capitol building. In 1885, the first 2,500 head of longhorn cattle arrived in Dallam County at the famed XIT Ranch. The ranch was plagued by mismanagement and poor weather condition and did not survive the declines in the cattle marketplace. The last XIT cattle were sold in 1912, and parcels of the state were gradually sold off until 1963. This photograph shows XIT cowboys rounding upwardly and branding cattle in 1902. Photographed by Westward.D. Harper. Prototype courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

An Ongoing Legacy

Technological developments such as railways, electricity, automobiles, vaccines, computers, and the Net have non simply eliminated an old system of ranching. They've likewise offered new opportunities for efficiency and profit.

The costs of owning land and raising livestock take dramatically increased over time. As a event, ranchers have found ways to diversify their operations. These include oil and gas, alternative energies such as current of air and solar power, hunting and wild animals, and tourism.

For some ranching families, the rising of Texas's oil industry has posed a threat to a way of life. For others, it has become a necessary means of survival. The Fisher family in West Texas is 1 example. The Fishers have endemic Bullhead Ranch for over a century, simply cattle ranching is not the lucrative business it one time was. The family unit now owns and operates their own oil wells, and the profits enable them to keep Bullhead Ranch and its cattle-raising tradition adrift. Conversely, Texas oil tycoons such every bit the late T. Boone Pickens have constitute new profit in ranching. Pickens purchased two,900 acres of land in the Texas Panhandle in 1971. Over time, he expanded Mesa Vista Ranch into a center of habitat conservation, quail hunting, and hospitality.

A number of celebrated Texas ranches have adjusted in similar ways. In Central Texas, the YO Ranch was one of the earliest to lease out its land for outdoor recreation and game hunting, including imported exotic wildlife from Africa. The Matador Ranch of West Texas is nonetheless agile in the cattle ranching business, but it has expanded into hunting as well.

Despite these changes, the longhorn remains primal to Texas's rich ranching culture. The Guerra family of Starr County understands this ameliorate than anyone. Their ancestors came from Northern Spain to Mexico in 1608. They eventually settled in the Rio Grande Valley, where they became major figures in South Texas ranching and politics. Enrique Guerra was an of import abet for the preservation of Tejano culture and the beloved Texas longhorn through the twentieth century, and the family continues this legacy today.

Finally, the spirit of Texas cattle ranching lives on in the livestock shows and rodeos of cities such as San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth. These are more than a source of entertainment or a place for stock raisers to prove off their difficult work. They are as well auctions where many kinds of animals tin can exist bought and sold, both in-person and online. Most chiefly, they encourage younger generations of Texans to actively carry on a proud tradition of stock raising. Afterward more than five hundred years of alter and adaptation, cattle ranching remains at the heart of the story and identity of Texas.

Banner prototype courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Sectionalization Washington, D.C.

Although the Texas cattle industry looks different today, the spirit of ranching and the iconic symbol of the longhorn remain central to Texan heritage. Simply as many ranches have expanded into the tourism industry, celebrated cattle towns like Fort Worth, pictured hither, recreate the history of the cracking cattle drives for the enjoyment of visitors. In this photo, a drover leads a parade of longhorn steers through Fort Worth's historic Stockyards Commune. Image courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Sectionalization Washington, D.C.

1730

1730Cows Are Coming!

The Spanish brought cattle to New Espana soon after they began colonization in the 1500s. The outset cattle arrived in Texas in the 1690s. By the 1730s, missionaries were operating cattle ranches around San Antonio and Goliad. Inside a few decades, individual ranchers like Martin de León began to build large operations. De León had some 5,000 cattle by 1816.

1830

1830Steaming to New Orleans

Anglo settlers who arrived in Texas in the 1830s brought with them the skills for farming, merely many were enticed by cattle ranching instead. In 1837, Charles Morgan established the offset steamship line in Texas to transport Texas cattle from the Gulf of Mexico to markets in New Orleans and the West Indies.

1840

1840The Shawnee Trail

In the 1840s, during the Republic of Texas era, individual ranchers organized cattle drives to New Orleans. They also established the Shawnee Trail to Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, where they could place the cattle on track cars to be transported to the big markets in New York and Philadelphia.

1850

1850Gold Blitz Cattle Drives

When the California gold rush began in 1849, Texas ranchers organized cattle drives to provide food for the "Twoscore-Niners." The drives left from San Antonio and Fredericksburg and took a perilous six-month journeying through El Paso to San Diego and Los Angeles. The California cattle drives concluded afterwards the market at that place went bosom in 1857.

1860

1860Coin on the Hoof

In the 1860s, the centre of Texas cattle ranching shifted from South Texas to the frontier northwest of Fort Worth. Here settlers from Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas established new ranches in the crude castor country. These settlers, many of whom opposed secession, faced vigilante violence during the Civil War, but eventually expanded the cattle business into a true industry.

1863

1863Mavericks on the Loose

Early in the Ceremonious War, Texas ranchers supplied the Confederate army with beef. Federal troops seized control of the Mississippi River and New Orleans in 1863, cut Texas off from its southern markets. With almost men involved in the state of war, cattle were left to roam. Past 1865, in that location were thousands of unbranded "maverick" cattle throughout the state.

1866

1866The Chisholm Trail

The economic destruction of the South after the Civil War meant Texas ranchers had to look elsewhere for profitable markets. In the North and East, cattle that were worth just $four a head in Texas could exist sold for $xl. The challenge was getting them in that location. Cow folk and their cattle traveled the famed Chisholm Trail that crossed the Red River and headed into Kansas in order to accomplish the track heads that could take the cattle to market.

1869

1869 Fencing Laureles

Pennsylvania-built-in Mifflin Kenedy began sheep ranching in Texas after the Mexican-American War of 1846. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Kenedy fabricated his move into cattle ranching with the buy of Laureles Ranch about Corpus Christi. Kenedy fenced his ranch with shine wire in 1869, marking the commencement of enclosed ranching in Texas. In 1907, Laureles was incorporated into the mighty King Ranch.

1873

1873Panic of 1873

Every bit the United states recovered from the Civil War, the nation's industrial capacity developed at a revolutionary pace. The overheated economy crashed in the Panic of 1873, causing the value of cattle to collapse. The resulting depression caused many cattle ranchers to get bankrupt and temporarily sidelined the industry.

1874

1874Closing the Range

Beginning in 1868, a series of patents was issued to several inventors for stiff, mass-produced fencing fabricated from interlocking strands of wire, outfitted with sharp barbs that discouraged even the toughest cattle from muscling through it. In 1876, ii salesman demonstrated barbed wire in the Alamo Plaza in San Antonio. Within a few years, the simple, revolutionary invention had ended the open range.

1875

1875Red River State of war

The cattle drives faced the constant threat of attack past American Indians. In a series of battles known as the Red River State of war, the U.S. Army defeated a large strength of Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Comanche at Palo Duro Coulee, by capturing and killing their horses. Without their ability to make state of war, the Indians were forced to relocate to reservations in Oklahoma, opening up the Staked Plains to cattle ranching.

1880

1880Put 'Em on Ice

Two factors concluded the legendary cattle drives. By 1879, the railroads had fully extended their reach into Texas, with ii,440 miles of track. The adjacent year saw the commencement patent for refrigerated railcars, significant meat no longer needed to be transported "on the hoof." The Chisolm Trail was obsolete and the Texas cattle industry entered a new era.

1883

1883Fence Cutting War

Landless cattle ranchers worked the remains of the open range, just frequently constitute their access to water and grass blocked by barbed wire. Landowners sometimes fenced land regardless of whether they held the title. Armed bands of cowboys cut through barbed wire, causing millions in amercement. The conflict subsided when ranch owners were ordered to install gates every three miles.

1883

1883When the Cowboys Quit

In an non-trigger-happy walkout aimed at five ranches, Texas cowboys protested the new exercise of being paid in cash instead of cattle. The strike ended with a slight pay increase but no return to a livestock-based salary arrangement. The cowboy life was a difficult i, with near men moving on after simply a couple of years.

1886

1886The Slap-up Dice-Up

Two devastating blizzards in the wintertime of 1886 stunned cattle ranchers. Before barbed wire, cattle'due south gratuitous roaming ways had unremarkably enabled them to survive such storms, merely now they were stranded behind their fences and died before ranchers could reach them with feed. Combined with falling cattle prices and overgrazing, the winter of 1886 dealt such a blow to the ranchers that it became known as "The Slap-up Dice-Upwardly."

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Source: https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/campfire-stories/cattle-folk

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