Transcripts For CSPAN3 Post-Civil War Cattle Trade 20240712

Growth of the u. S. Beef industry. The Watkins Museum of history and lawrence kansas hosted this event. Good evening everyone. Welcome to our latest book chat at the watkins. I am will hickox. I thank you for joining us tonight. Im starting to sound like a broken record before every event, but these days, when there are so many options for things to do with our free time, and you can just sit on your couch every evening. It is very encouraging and exciting for us here at the museum to have folks come in for our events. We really appreciate it. I know that the staff of the bookstore appreciates it as well. I will introduce tonights guest speaker. James sherow is University Distinguished professor at the department of history at kansas state university. He specializes in researching and teaching environmental history. Kansas history. North American Indian history and the history of the American West. Professor sherow sherow has written six books and numerous articles. It is a familiar resource for the staff and volunteers that the watkins. We have books on the shelves and have used it. The grasslands of the United States and environmental history. Another book. Tonight, professor sherow will discuss his latest work and coffees will be available for purchase and signing thanks to our partners at the raven bookstore right here in kansas. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming james sherow. applause . Think you will hickox. I appreciate the generous introduction. Thank you for hosting me here at the watkins tonight. Im really honored by this. Thank you for hosting as well. This is quite a privilege. I will start with a question that came to my mind as i started researching this book. Because, why in the world with anybody want to do another book on the chisholm trail . Its been in movies. Novels. My approach to this was to ask different questions and do this within an environmental historical context. The main thing i was looking at was i wanted to follow Joseph Pierre joseph mccoys life. When i look at his life and the opening of the chisholm trail, why the trail . Why was this so important in the first place . Why was the trail done at this particular moment and time . And more importantly, why joseph mccoy . Why this particular individual and what was his legacy. As i came to an overarching conclusion i said, it all has to do with one word. Connections. I in the brief two decades that this trail system was in place, you can see a really remarkable transformation of the americans grassland. It was an ecological transformation that the trail way made possible. Two individuals understood that transformation. One was james r. Mead. He was a fur trapper, an indian trader. He helped put together wichita. He was involved in the cattle trade. He had a lot and a skier experienced a lot here that one was john hatch, a colonel. Both of these individuals witnessed the destruction of the anne bison. He helped created because he was a virtual trader. But he lamented it later in life. Capitals came to replace bison. He longed for that older prairie system of wild animals. Throughout this live he lamented that transformation which he was a part of in the first place. Patch was there working with him and he was also observing what was happening as the result of the disappearance of bison. The grazing of cattle. The influx of forming and how that was transforming the ecology of the grasslands going from a mix tall grass system down to a sparse system covered by brush. What caused that kind of ecological transformation . Hatch is important for another reason as well. He was there in his mind to help the kyle was go to becoming past store lists. Raising cattle, and then eventually reaching that higher realm of civilization as he thought about becoming farmers. These two individuals really saw what was going wrong. The people who always seem to be on the losing end of this whole grand story where the indian peoples who occupied the grass lines prior to the cattle treats. Some of these individuals were and part responsible for it and some of them want to be involved in it. Black beaver an interested was involved in the third trade across the American West but when he came back to oklahoma, an indian terror and indian territory at the time, he had a sizable cattle herd himself. He was a wealthy individual. He had a sizable farm. A very interesting individual who also to treating. He went up and down what later became the chisholm trail. In many respects, we could call this the black beaver trail as easily as we could call it the chisholm trail. The principal chief of the cherokees dennis busy head, in late 1890s was busy doing cattle trade that the cherokees control and what was called the cherokee strip. He wanted to regulate and tax the cattleman who were grazing their herds on indian land. He had his own hurts. Before the civil war it is amazing, the cherokees have their own brand of cattle. In indian territory, among five civilized tribes it was estimated prior to the civil war, collectively these five nations had over 250,000 cattle. Some of the ranchers, indian ranchers had as many as 10,000 in their herds. We need to rethink how we think about indian peoples and cattle trade. General pleasant porter. He was a general in the civil war with the confederacy. Some of the indian people after the civil war, he took up ranching again and he was very concerned about whose ride it was to control leasing. The creeks were well known for cattle being cattle razors. It was going to be the federal government who control how they did the leasing or were indians actually sovereign nations . He said by treating, we are sovereign nation so we should be able to control what we do. They were not able to. Eventually, all of these individuals lose out completely. Theyre the ones who as well as the landscapes that they won once occupied. When i think about this, and im thinking, how do i tell the story . This individual joseph mccoy. He is a good person to follow in doing this. The story can be told by following his life and what he did. His great gamble. The legacy of that gamble. And what was this . 1899, he was attending the Second Annual meeting of the Livestock Association in the Grand Opera House in denver colorado. These were stockmen. You need to understand the distinction between stockmen and cowboys. Stop men owned the hurts. They owned the land. They were the ones who controlled the trade from top to bottom. In this setting here, the stage, mccoy is going to be honored and given a lifetime membership in this organization for what he meant to developing the modern cattle treat that was on the cusp of the beginning in the 20th century. When they talked about him, they talked about his work. It is an interesting statement to say in the cattle trade, pursuing a mission. But it was contemplating the benefits to mankind at large. Particularly, mccoy wanted to produce enough beef to feed the working class peoples of the United States. Who before this time or unable to afford it. But they also talked about ecological changes that were coming about as well. To make the wilderness the bloom and blossom as the rose. That is how he was introduced as being the person who did this. Mccoy, when he thought about himself, and when he thought about stopping altogether, it is interesting to note how he framed this. He said, they are the best fathers, the most ardent of levers. What an interesting comment. Affectionate husbands, the best men. Now here is where he goes in a different direction then we think a lot of other people might go. They are gods, nobleman. He is using that word nobleman very precisely. Stop man thought of themselves as night air its. They thought of themselves as being nobleman. They were not the jeffersonian agrarian farmer, just doing a little patch of 160 acres of wheat. These were men on a grand scale. They lived in very large homes. Large ranches. He employed hundreds of individuals. In some cases, maybe had herds, maybe raging up to 100,000 animals. These were men who thought on a large scale. In this respect, when they talk about being gods chosen, this does not fit into the american ideal of the land owning farmer being the backbone of the republic, does it . These are men of a different cast. They are pursuing something quite grand as he did. So, where do i want to begin the story . Where everyone would begin with cattle trail story, about particularly, texas cattle, you begin it on the streets of new york city. This is where i began this work. In the post civil war era, new york city was the largest city in the United States. Over 1 million people. There were people coming into it constantly. When you consider the south at the end of the civil war, all of the cities were devastated. Some of them incomplete ruin. While new york city was growing, throughout the entire civil war and amassing riches and amassing lots of people, and lots of foundry people. I cannot imagine what new york city was like in 1866, but i try to explain it a little bit. Not only were there people crowded in the streets, but there were horses and Draft Animals constantly running through the streets. We all know with those animals were. Not only where the streets were covered with manure from these draft on a mulls. There were wild hogs running through the streets of the city as well, as well as domestic hogs shepherded to the various butchers. Then there were wild dogs as well as domesticated dogs running the streets. There were herds of sheep, driven through the streets of the city every day. More interesting lee, from my perspective, and this came out of leslies illustrated. There were cattle down the streets of new york city every single day. Thousands of cattle. It blows my mind to think about cattle being driven up fifth avenue. But that was the case during this time. If you look at the island of manhattan and from 40th street down to battery park, down to the southern tip of the island, that is called the slaughterhouse district. There is a reason for that. There were in this area around 200 slaughterhouses working daily. Taking the animals during live slaughtering in that district and throwing, about 55 of the animal back into these barrels that the wild hogs would come and eat out of. It must have been an amazing scene altogether. This is where the large markets were. This is the new jersey shore. This is washington market. The beef would be butchered and some of them would be hung on aisles. People at the time, reporters talked about these crimson curtains. They were lining the aisles of the market here. Those were the quarters of beef hanging there for people to come around and buy. In 1866, what was amazing to me about this as well, there was an individual walking the streets as well selling cattle. He was from illinois. His name was william mccoy. He had an office there. He had two younger brothers back in springfield. Joseph and james. It was going to be their understanding of the new york market that was going to drive them into eventually creating what we know now as the chisholm trail. There were changing tastes and dining at this time, particularly motivated by restaurants like delmonicos delmonicos when Abraham Lincoln dined at delmonicos, about a 20 ounce cut of sirloin was his favorite dish. Its still amazes me that lincoln could eat that and still not put on much weight. The dining at delmonicos was amazing and very elaborate. Many courses. The beef was starting to replace other cuts, particularly lamb, but also seafood as beef became more popular. Mccoy also realized that with all the people in the city there was a potential market for cheap meet. If you could get it into that market. These were the stock trains that came into the city on a daily basis, bringing cattle from particularly onestate all together. That is where most of the cattle, well into the whole trail driving years, those 20 years. Most of the cattle coming in to new york city was from the state of illinois. Very seldom were texas cattle themselves driven directly to new york city. This would have been a disastrous thing for anybody involved in the trade financially, that is. I will explain this in just a little bit. These were the trains that were bringing the cattle. In on a daily basis and kind of were coming from all over the place. They were coming from kentucky, ohio, they were coming down from canada in the province of ontario. They supplied a lot of cattle to the new york markets. This is because there was no way that the farmers and the state of new york could supply enough food to feed all the people just simply in new york city. That is not saying anything else about all the other cities that are on the east coast and growing large at the same time. If you are wondering how strong those markets are and what prompted them to think, maybe we can make a good killing in this business, so to speak. If you look at this. I have traced the cattle trade from 1866 through 1884. The blue line here is the cattle that were driven north out of texas. Each season. The orange line here is the cattle that was received into new york city. If you look at this, there is only a couple of years were even all the cattle driven out of texas would have supplied the city of new york. Only two years. That is how strong just one citys market was for beef. So, knowing this, if you could just start getting your cattle into that, especially if there is cheap cattle in texas, and you can make a lot of money by the time it gets into this heated market in new york city. That is the whole goal. One of the people who realize this very early on was a man by the name of Samuel Allerton. Samuel allerton realized a couple of things. One, city streets were getting dusty no matter where you were in the United States. Chicago is a mess for the same reasons that new york city streets were. St. Louis had the same problems. So Samuel Allerton had the same problems. He decided, i will put together what i will call union stop he was the first to do this. The first one when a union stop yard dozens of takes railroad lines, connects them to stock yards, connects them to slaughter houses, can exit all in the same setting with maybe a hotel and business facility for the people who are engaged in the trade. A union stop yard, where all this is done in one setting. You take all that mess out of the city streets. That was something people were looking for two in a big kind of. Way his Second Venture was creating the Chicago Union stock yards. Famous and hub city of the world. He opened in december of 25th 1865, a very big gift to the city of chicago. The second one was the if this is in jersey. Here is the whole thing. Ferries will take the slaughtered animals and slaughtered meet to the new york shore. The trains would arrive into the stock yards, into the holding pens, into the slaughterhouse and how the business and hotel were conducted right here. All of this and one great union where everything is brought together and one setting. This was a great advanced on this this started the mccoy brothers thinking maybe we can put together Something Like this and kansas and capture the trade from texas. John Tracy Alexander was an individual in illinois who the mccoy brothers knew very well. He ran an operation of about 80,000 acres. He raced corn and then over winter beef and put weight on them and put them in the new york part markets. He was the largest operator out of illinois. With the mccoy brothers wanted to do was to channel texas cattle which were very cheap, because they had nowhere to go during the civil war, and then get them to Transportation Systems and take them to buyers like alexander in illinois, who would buy them and fatten am up. The mccoy brothers were interested in being the middlemen in this whole system. They were not interested in being cowboys themselves. They were interested in the buying and selling of livestock. As innocence, so was alexander, except he kept them for over the winter, got them fat. Get them fed on hay and corn and get them into that new york market. Each extra pound get gets you more money. This is the result in that wonderful thriving metropolis of abilene and 19th since 1867. To huts. One run by an interesting fellow by the name of july a jones. Prior to prohibition in kansas, he had a little whiskey shop and abilene and there used to be a stage route that ran through here. He would give people a little bit of wilkie to help them get on their way to denver. He was also known as a prairie dog town, because he would capture predogs and sell them to the people at the station. They had enough to drink, presumably. And then off they would go. That was a thriving business in abilene before the mccoy brothers got their. The mccoy brothers put together what they called, the Great Western stock yards. I dont know about you, but when i think about the stock yards in chicago, i think about the stock yards in new jersey. Something is lacking here in the word great. But, you cannot see it really well but alexander took this photograph in 67, a wellknown photographer. He cut the signs up here he caught the signs up here. Great western stock yards. Right above there. I tend to think, given the stature of this individual, that they that may have been joseph mccoy standing there taking all the second. What motivated him and his brothers to put in this tens of thousands of dollars into this operation . It was this. Eventually, they will put a hotel there. That is part of the great union stock yards. It is called the drivers cottage. That is where the businessman came. That is where the main stockman came. Not the cowboys. That is where they did their business. They had a nice billiard hall, a saloon. Things were very comfortably set up for them. This is where the cattle were loaded. But why in the world abilene . There is a reason for this. I will get to it and just a little bit. It had to do with something called texas fever. In 1866, the texas cattleman finally got their act together enough to recover from the civil war to drive the cattle into illinois. What happened, when they started doing this, is something that happened as early as 1860 and kansas. This is, whenever the texas cattle got close to any domestic short hurts short horns, the short horns died. Think about this if you are a kansas farmer. You have a couple dairy cows, and that is basically what you have. Maybe you have a calf or a goat. Then the texas hurt goes by, and a week later your heard instead. You are not too thrilled with the presence of texas cattleman. So the eastern part of the state was settled by farmers like this. They were tough on these texas cattleman. They killed the hurts if they could. They stampeded them back into indian territory. Or they would take on some occasions, they actually took a drover, tied to the tree and whipped its back until it was a bloody pulp. They would say do not come this way again. They were very serious. It tickles me a little bit to see westerns, always these vicious texas cattleman and cowboys who raised terror with these poor defenseless farmers. It was much the opposite way. Mccoy had to find some place out of range where he could drive cattle and not interfere with those farmers, because that was creating havoc. It was serendipitous that also you have the building of these railroads across the state. By 1867 it is reaching, it is building farther west. That first link into this eastern market. The texas cattleman could drive their cattle up to here. They can do their business in here. And the cattle would be put on to the stock cars and eventually reach illinois, fattened up there and put on a dish on the way and get into the east coast cities. This all looked very good on paper. And mccoy was more than willing, and he and his brothers or more than willing to invest and getting that going. There were other routes that were very important at this time. There were other markets that were pulling cattle out of texas and into other places. Also london. American cattle were put live on transatlantic boats and taken to london, because just like new york city, london far exceeded the ability of even the english farmers to supply the city. Eventually, there were changes in technology, like the steam ship victim the steam ship victoria that had refrigerated holes. Now you could even pack more carcasses in this and get them into london and you could ship in live cattle. Shipping live cattle like this, you will have a few problems. They will have been beaten up by the time they get their. This, it doesnt matter, because they are packed tight and refrigerated holes and a very low loss on the ship. Everybody was pretty happy ones that technology was finally put together. Capital were also taken up the mississippi river. This shows cattle being loaded onto a steamboat, probably at the red river. Where the red river enters the mississippi river. It was a popular place for texas meant to drive cattle. It would be packed. So tightly on the dex of these boats that the cattle could not move. They would have to stand there for as long as it took for the steamboat to get up to illinois and offloaded there. Joseph mccoy talked about the conditions of the cattle. They were packed so tightly that the crew would throw hay on their backs and the cattle would heap eat the hay off the backs of other cattle. They would be watered by having a hose and just fed by hose to get the water that they needed. This was a pretty brutal Transportation System altogether. It shows you the dynamics of the trade. Here. Here is the thing that shaped the trade more than anything else altogether. The stick. A little creature. It harbored a three my crown large pro doesnt. A tiny Little Critter inside the belly of this tic. It thrived in the southern regions of the United States. In the southern portions of texas and mississippi, louisiana, georgia, florida. What this tic would do, it latches onto the cattle. It would latch on to dear and horses as well. Then it would release this pro on into the bloodstream of the cattle. In the south, along horns and the cherokee cattle, both developed immunity to this tic. The mothers milk give them enough immunity where they could survive and would be touched by this disease, but they would survive it and grow into adulthood. This protest on, when it got into the bloodstream of an animal that was not protected by the antibodies that its mother had given it it would tic directly attack the red blood cells and just drill through them and utterly destroy them. This was a pretty gruesome gift for that for any of these animals. In the north, this tick dies in the winter. The short horn hurts in the north never had any encounter with this tick. Not until the texas cattle were driven up during the summers, and then the Texas Capital, oftentimes their whole hides would be covered with the sticks, to the point where sometimes the heights almost looked great from being covered with takes. It takes would drop off all the way up the trail and anytime they got near the domestic herds, they would latch on to the domestic animals. But these animals had no immunity and within a week or two, they were dead. This cost havoc throughout hat the entire industry. Nobody understood or even figured out how to treat this until 1890. Well after all the capital trail driving was done and over in the United States, this to was an active player in the whole game of those markets. In 1868, mccoy gets his cattle operation really going in 67, and it is the first time cattle are shipped to the east out of his place. He thinks, 68, its going to be even better. Well, this is what happened in 68. The fever broke out everywhere, all across the east. It broke out in canada because cattle were shipped through canada. It broke out in new york and new jersey, ohio, missouri. Short horn cattle all across the nation were dying. The governors of these states said, we are embargoing any cattle coming from texas. This created chaos through the whole markets. You can imagine what mccoy thought after investing all this money in abilene and now having no place to sell cattle. It was a devastating thing. Eventually, all of these cattleman decided to have a conference in springfield illinois, where they worked out arrangements where any cattle that were over winter, because they knew, for some reason, any cattle that were over winter were safe to put with short horns, because the ticks would die. But again, they did not understand why. It did not understand why this was happening. Any of them that were certify to be over winter than could be put into the markets the following year. Mccoy noted that it was with a nice little bribe and a lot of cattle could get certified for being over winter. That was the compromise that everybody had to make. All these delegates from all across the United States and canada met in springfield to try to work out the situation to keep this cattle business alive. That was one aspect of this that i was looking at that had environmental context in terms of disease. How climate shaped where these tapes could live. Would effects it had on the markets, policies, governors and then consumers. Consumers deny monte eat any of these animals that died from a disease like this. So all of these things were coming together. It was the connections here that i was looking for and trying to understand. You can see other connections as well. Rainfall. Not only was rainfall a dangerous situation for cattleman on the trail, you did not want to be caught out like this, but oftentimes you were. I cannot imagine what it was like for the herds to be caught in these rainstorms. Lightning, and then they are stampeding. You have got to go out there and bring those cattle back into the herd. In this hailing. If you have been any hailstorm without any coverage, you know that is not fun at all. These were the kinds of conditions these people injured. There were other things that were interesting to me about more than just these rainstorms. Part of this was, okay, what were the rain i tracked this happens to be the growing season rainfall in 1867. Then and recorded by Different Army posts across the grasslands. The blue line is from fort bliss and texas. In the southern portion of oklahoma, fort reilly are up in kansas. What happened it is interesting to note, that here is the fort riley here. This is the one that is probably closest to abilene. So for some reason in that particular year we have an extraordinary amount of rainfall and september, but also in july particularly in june. That they had grass was on shorter grass farther out around hagues. They take the cattle around there. Novembers looking not too bad. This is freezing, these temperatures are drive from or be post surgeons. The fort reilly and fort haze, three times a day they took readings. The morning, the afternoon and early evening. That is what this graph. Shows those combined readings for the month of november. The i think any of you can see what happens by the 17th. The highs in the day, one, two, three only three days to highs get above freezing. If you are one of those cowboys stuck with the heard somewhere around hayes or between saline and haze, youre starting to get a little anxious about how the winter is starting to turn out. This is december. It doesnt get much better, the line across here, once again that is freezing them. Christmas was not worth celebrating much because the high on Christmas Day in fort reilly got up to about five degrees below zero. Now, during that particular winter to, this was accompanied by high winds and snow. So not only freezing temperatures. It kind of makes me think that this last february was pretty mild. And then this was january. And it does not get much better. By the time spring came, the texas cattleman who had herds out there, they had lost anywhere from 70 to 90 of their herds. About the only thing they were able to harvest where the hides. The newspaper accounts here in lawrence records shipments of cars filled with cattle hides going back to the tanneries. That was all that was left that the cattleman could salvage of this particular winter. Once again, what are the connections between ticks, produce a law, winter, these are the kind of things that i was trying to fake air out how that affected markets. Geography also effected all of this, the way that cattle were being driven. They are often driven on the trails, driven up to a place where they had grass, and this territorial survey map there is no indication of trees, this is southern kansas. There are large creeks on either side, you are on a ridge here. That way you can see what is coming at you from either side, youre always close to water and grass. That is the key component of making that work. But the thing that is going to disturb all of this is getting back to that jeffersonian ideal of the agrarian republic. Chopping up the land into sections, quarter sections and so forth. This is a federal surveying outfit in present day sedgewick county, starting to cordon off the land into neat little squares. This is something that will put an end to texas cattle driving because the two system cannot coexist. Once this is put into squares and that becomes my property and im growing weak on it, and having this in the next grass that you see here, i dont want texas cattle coming up through it. And so, this represents that transformation from this grasslands system that you see here, to a full fledged agricultural system in the ecological changes that accompanied that. When you look at this from photographs from 1867, this was a gardeners photographed that John Charlton who lived here in town, a former photographer for the Kansas Geological survey. But he studied these photos from Alexander Gardner that were taken in 1867, a little bit to the west of hays kansas. You can see the sharp kind of bears sides of the hill here. No trees and here you see prairie grass, you see croplands, trees, streets, elevators and homes, it different landscape in place here by 2000. What the cattle traded, he created a pathway for this to come into play, replacing this the. And thats where the connections i look at. How did that transformation occur . And what were the ecological forces that made this possible . So basically, you could have different kinds of ecosystems in the same place. Think about this is a wild grassland system and this one being a domesticated grassland system. That is what wheat is, it is a grass. That is what corn is, it is a grass. Thats what alfalfa is, it is a grass. It is just not buffalo grass here. People came here. But you have two very distinct ecosystems occupying the same space. This, i think was the importance of cattle traders. It made this transformation possible. When i look at mccoy. When he was lionized on his death in 1915 of october. Marshall murdoch, had this to say. Mccoy graves into the mirage of the plains with a soft and dreamy eye of a poet. The prairies went long ago, but joseph mccoy went on dreaming of them and their tomorrow. What was that dream . Marshall murdoch said it was prairies full of glistening cities, crisscrossing it with giant highways. With teaming millions. When we think about what we should think about the legacy of mccoy how much of that did murdoch did right . Obviously, what we have here is a transformed grassland. As a result of the cattle trade. We have an industrial transformation, the creation of the union stock yards, refrigeration, the creation of different forms of transportation to get capital into these markets. Indian people settling cultures and the roles in the cattle trade were completely destroyed. They never had a place by 1890, they lost control of all their leasing ability. Most of them were unable to maintain their own hurts. The pastoral experiment with the kyle was came to a complete disaster and the same with the southern cheyennes. This is because texas cattleman had kind of a habit of going on to the reservations and stealing capitals from the chaos and the cheyennes and going back home again. The army was oftentimes charged with going back and getting these cattle which was never a fun experience for them, because think about the texas man who were stealing these candles. A lot of them were forward confederates, and then the soldiers who are stationed at fort sale and other places, they were former union petulance. Then to complicate matters a little bit, sometimes the civic cavalry where the buffalo soldiers, the cavalrymen. They had a rough time when they met with former confederates. So, indian peoples did not have a lot of resources to combat that. They were unable to protect their cattle trade. The cherokees, the creates eventually lost their ability to control leases. Not only that, they had other lands sold off. Allotments. That completely destroyed their ability to even do ranching on the large scale that they had ones done. Then, the rise of the new western mythology. And mccoys eyes, he gave us the myth of the stock we oftentimes think of him of getting the myth of a cowboy. Mccoy, really didnt have much track with cowboys. They were just the workers. When newspapers talked about cowboys early on in the cattle trade business, the new york times, the New York Herald tribute refer to them as herders. They did not refer to them as cowboys. That was the place of the cowboy at the beginning. The real people working it or the stockmen. Mccoy gave us the myth of the stockmen, but that hasnt prevailed into modern popular culture, has it . It has been the myth of the cowboy that has prevailed, which is sort of an irony that mccoy, giving us the myth of the stockman was not able to tap down the middle of the cowboy. These are some of the things, some of the major things that i have come to understand about the trade. The kind of opened my eyes to see it in a different kind of way and looking at a whole different set of connections that made it work, or in some cases, not made it work. I thank you for your time. I would be happy to take any questions that you might have. applause is anyone have a question . Yes. Professor james sherow. I think about how americans bodies in particular have change in the 20 than 24 centuries because of our diets quite drastically. It sounds like beef became a staple of the american diet after the civil war, thanks to people like mccoy. Im wondering, have you in your Research Uncovered any indicators or any evidence, like american culture, or Americans Health the way of life changed in that time period because of beef consumption . That is an excellent question. Yes it did. The Texas Capital coming up had lower prices then the short horns raised and count canada, illinois or kentucky and ohio. Mccoy understood this. So did the texas cattleman. The idea was to get the men the meat to some of the other markets to new york city. This is oftentimes where People Living in the tenants, very poor people went by their foods. A great meal for them was when they could afford to buy beef. Beef became more prominent in their diets, especially after advances and creating the arbiters or the slobber slaughterhouse. They were able to mass produce the had ever been done before like those 200 butcher shops that populated the slaughterhouse district of manhattan. The poor working class people started being able to buy beef on a more regular basis, but the cuts were cheaper. Texas longhorn beef was never sold or served in the darwinistic in the delmonicos restaurant, excuse me. The best weighed over 900 pounds. It was a pretty small animal. The cuts were also leaner. Even though the illinois stockman try to put on a little more fat and wait on it by over wintry name before putting them into the eastern markets. Yes sir. The trade, the abilene, if im correct, was 1867 to 71, is that correct roughly . 72. Where most of those herds, which years of those herds were overwintered overwintered as a result of the conference in springfield. We think of the drive as being one where they went straight through, etc. It is possible that they were overwintered in illinois, because you have better grass conditions. You had corn. The idea was to get them to get them to a transfer spot like abilene and get them into the rail cars and get them to illinois as quickly as possible. That is where those people like alexander were so important in this trade. They bungled everything and then after the winter, hopefully getting them fattened enough, we take them to the new york markets. But the overwintering was done there. Not along the trail. No not along the trail. If you were one of these unfortunate growers who took his heard up last in the season, your possibilities of sowing cattle were pretty slim. You would go west. Herds were overwintered like i said, once they were switch to places like wichita, they were overwintered aground great ben today. There were places in kansas where they were overwintered. I have two historical questions. One is about where the trail was. Are there verified maps of where the trail went through kansas and where do we find them . And how wide was it . It wasnt like 50 feet. I mean, was it two miles wide or obviously, the cows varied on the path . Great question. There were surveys done of the trail and these surveys are housed in the kansas city struggle society. One of the earlier issues of the Kansas Historical it shows the completely out of the trail through kansas. In oklahoma in the historical archives there, also a very similar map of the trail. A lot of questions are about where exactly where that trail ran. Let me see. I will just give you an idea where the trail is. I have to do this. There i am on the trail. We went looking for spots on the old trail not too long ago. The trail itself should never be imagined as just a narrow ribbon. In the first place, you had to be grazing cattle. If you are one of the first hurts going up, then it is pretty fine. You can keep to a pretty narrow route. If you are in the second or third, youve got to go a little further out. When you get to the grazing grounds. Sometimes, that can be miles and miles and miles apart. Sometimes you may take a little short cuts or side cuts to the main trail, because you always have to be close to water. You always have to be close to grass. Those were the two conditions that you could never wavered from. The herds were usually water at least twice a day. Three times a day, really. In the morning to get them up and going. In the afternoon at sun point. In the evening. That was a very serious consideration. If the grazing grounds around the water source were grazed off, then the cattle had to go far out to graze and pretty soon, you are in a losing situation, because they graze far out and then they lose the weight that they may have gained by coming back into water. Getting out the trail early, finding those side paths to get up. Sometimes those could be many many miles apart. My second question was about the lay of the land in new york city. I recently discovered, i have a relative that owns a tavern. I believe it was on chatham square. Is that close to the washington market . It is north of it. As i understand it. That was when the favorite spots were yes where discussions took place. Yes whatever, it drove people there. Thanks. Two questions. Did the trail exist prior to this period for any reasonable commerce and then secondly, the name chisholm trail, where did that come from . There are people who have written scores about i will start with the last one first. Where the name chisholm came from. I think most of us agree, it has to do with chelsea chisholm. Prior to the civil war, there were trade routes radiating all throughout the grasslands. Indian people knew them. Black people knew them. You had to be able to find water and grass. That is how people got around. Think about grass, as i discuss in my book, its stored solar energy. And that feeds the animals. That is what powers it. Just like stored solar energy in the form of petroleum powers our cars. It is just a different form. That is the key to making it work. Solar energy. So youve got to have that. So that was very important. I think i drifted off, your question again . The name cheese home. These people knew this route. They knew the route from the trading post that the old stages would go to around where the Arkansas River met the large Arkansas River. This was a trading area, people knew this area. To go from there to the river south, or any of the rivers through present day indian territory, there are certain routes that people took. So the beginning of the civil war, an officer who was vacating their post very quickly, they could not go south, they couldnt go east into arkansas, that was a silly move. It was too far to go to california. What they wanted to do is get back to the north, so they, black beaver took them we in 1861, what would become the chisholm trail. But it was a wellknown route to many people. Black beaver led these Army Officers and their families to this trading post area where wichita is today, they went farther north and went to the scent of a trail, and got themselves into kansas city and beyond. When black beaver came back to his ranch, it had been destroyed by texas confederates. He lost everything and had to move back. Jesse chisholm we was operating his operation in present day indian territory. And he was part cherokee, part scotts, so when he also at that time moved his trading operation up to the same spot where wichita is today. After the civil war he was going back and forth between present day el reno and the trading post there. That was where he was also working and so they, these people all knew each other. And they worked on the trade with each other, radiating out of kansas city in the scent of a trail, that was the connection to the east. They knew this route, Jesse Chisholm was following that same route to al reno where he died early on. For sometime the trail and kansas, when mccoy claimed it from present day wichita, sometimes that and then there was debate about they should call it make ways trail or not. Eventually the whole trail system landed on the name chisholm trail. Probably because of the death of Jesse Chisholm. But it couldve easily been called black beavers trail. Any other questions . Yes. When you refer to the cowboy apology, what exactly do you mean by that . There werent so many cowboys that were different characters . Oh, they were characters. A lot of them, the cowboys that mccoy talks about, were former confederates, they were young men. When he talked about them coming into abilene, they were still wearing their great shirts from their time in being in the confederacy. The reason i asked that is that my great great grandfathers, they were a drover on the chisholm trail. I have a horse and bridle that was made by him. That was my great grandmother story. They were a little different from cowboys, drivers were often managing that herds. Cowboys worked for drivers. He was probably a cowboy then. Maybe he wanted to be a drover. I think he left missouri and went down into the civil war area and into texas. There were a lot of young men, primarily young men, if you are leading the herd, and you are the trail boss or the drover, you are well respected individual. You are in charge of maintaining a heard that was put together by who knows how many other ranchers. So, with the herds were put together each ranch or had his own hand. With the herds that was going to be driven north, it was a combination of all these different herds. They were given a trail brand. There were two brands on the cattle, one that identified the owner and one that identified the herd that was driven north. This way, there were times when there were stampedes and the cattle would get all mixed up from the different herds, and cowboys had the tough task of separating the herds and getting them back on the trail. There were lots of different herds commingleding in the same one. The drivers were responsible for maintaining that order. That is a lot of responsibility. When cattle were being driven up by the trail, they are going through native american territory, can you talk about the interactions between the cowboys, the drovers and the naval people. Native peoples, they werent stupid about what was handing help happening to them. They understood. It was akin to owning a lot of filling stations up the interstate and nobody paying for the gas. They had the filling stations, it was called the grass. They wanted the grass for their own horses, they wanted the grass for the animals that they hunted. So if youre going to drive the holes, they want tolls paid. Some of the tribes demanded money per head and others would, which is they would kind of waltz in and say i would like this one this one in this one, and we are going to have a barbecue. A good texas catalan would say fine, i dont know about those, but here is this one, it has a broken leg but you can have it, and theres this one in this one. They would make these arrangements. Sometimes it went swimmingly well and sometimes it didnt. We get a misconception about this. Sometimes the interactions, one of my favorite stories is about this one heard big driven north, it is crossing one of the rivers in indian territory. The as the command cheese come on the scene, as they come on the scene, they decide we will help you drive the herd above across the river. It is swollen and well help you do this. So they knew they are going to get a couple of cattle out of the whole thing. So they helped the texas cattleman drive the herd across the river. Then they thought, but we still have stopped having fun, i dont know how much fun there is, but they had some fun apparently. It was a game of rope the speeding warrior. A comanches brave would ride his front of the texas cattleman who had a lasso and the idea was to rope the brave off of his horse. Now, no comanches thought he was going to get roped. But one unfortunate fellow, maybe he was on a slow horse, but he got roped off his horse. He fell flat on his back. The texans were all thinking oh my god, we are in trouble now. What is going to happen to us, we roped him off and he doesnt look very good. So they all race to him and the ropes tied around his chest, they cut the rope and then slowly the brave comes back to life and sits up the, and everybody cheered. And then his own the comanches cohort who was with them just broke out in laughter. They thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seem. I dont know what the guy who got roped off the horse. Thought and how he got along with everybody after that the. But the texans were very happy to get back on the trail again after having this bit of a sport with the the comanches. There were all these kind of stories. When indian peoples were treated fairly, things went smoothly. When they werent treated fairly, things went poorly. There are probably too many stories of things going poorly than things going. Well three questions in one, what was the average size of the herd, how many cowboys did that require, and how many days did it take . Okay, all those were variables. The herds could be as small as several hundred to a herd of several thousand. Then it varies about how many crew you need to do heard that size. If you had a herd of a couple thousand, you probably need a few on the side maybe two or three, then there is always somebody who had the fun job of eating dust in the back. There is always the person at the front to scout out the grasses, scout out the water sources. They knew where they were primarily, but where were the places that were most at ventilation to grace . That had to be done. Then there was a few miles back. The horses were changed out every day. Yet have a large herd of horses at the back. So it took up a few cowboys to do that. Then you also had the wagon with all of the supplies, becoming a chuck wagon. These were pretty large operations. The average wage was probably about 15 dollars for the cowboys. The drover took a cut of the proceeds. And then the idea was to bring the money back in and distribute it to the ranchers back in texas. But if the driving conditions were good you could get up in a couple of months, if they were poor you ran into poor grazing conditions or rainfall, storms, stampedes. That could make it take a lot longer. Some of the stories of the stampedes are just incredible. On one occasion, the cattle were thirsty and the drovers when the trail, hands got to this one watering hole, there was no water. So they had to go to the next one. And then there was an indian encampment, they cattle could smell the water and they broke into a stampede and ran right through that village. We all of the indian horses and everything were scattered, the lodges were all run over, they cattle were going everywhere. You can imagine what kind of mayhem that was. The so you didnt want to encounter troubles like that. One more question, if someone died along the trail, where they paid and how did they get back to texas . I dont know that they got back to texas. The you know, i dont know how the pay worked. I dont know if the driver knew who the family was. But maybe some of them didnt even have families. I really dont know. Maybe the drover at that point said that save me some money. We there wasnt much foolishness or tolerance on those trail drives. Who it was hard, grueling work every single day. We in which is interesting, one thing i note about this, if you are caught drinking while being driving on the trail you are fired immediately. There is no tolerance for a drunk cowboy on the trail because they cause more trouble than they were worth. No matter where they were they were sent packing, that could be very dangerous situation when you are a lone individual in the middle of indian territory. And they say, good luck buddy. How do we even know what happened. Did the cowboys write a journal. How do we know this . People like mccoy, he did right, he wrote about his experiences in the cavil tree. In the 1920s, with the passing of a great many of these cowboys, there was a group of individuals in texas who put together interviews of all the cowboys who had gone up the trail. And this is been. Published its called the trail drivers of texas. And those stories are fascinating. You have to be careful about reading them, because you are reading peoples memories that happened 20 or 30 years earlier, some cases it was 40 years. So potentially you detect some embellishment. But some of the stories check out very well in terms of you can cross reference them the, when they say we are driving this one heard up through indian territory and we had all this trouble with the northern are so i can look at the post records and say, they said they were here on the state. What was happening at the post and the post notes . And how they color. You know the story is accurate. The one about the drivers who came up to abilene and 68. They could not sell their animals. So they sent most of the crew back to texas and part of the herd out. And they said why cant you buy some bison and learn to advertised abilene by advertising bison in the cities of st. Louis and chicago, now im going to get them to so its coming early of a wild west show. So they go to the stadiums and rope cantaloupe and bison that they had captured and showed the people with the wild west was all about. This was 1868. They did not get any farther than chicago. The chicago papers reported reported what had happened. The bison were already crippled up by the time they got there. I the cowboys were pretty rough on the bison in this stadium. The newspapers reported on the viciousness of them all. The next two night shows were canceled. Mccoy did not do so well with that. Soft those are just interesting sort of things that happened with what you are talking about no. Is there an estimate on how many trump traversed the trail during this activity . It winded chicago become the clatter house of the world . You talked about the cattle going directly to new jersey. Was chicago developing it at the same time . Depending on the refrigeration cars . Let me deal with that question first. I dont have a good firm answer for you on the first. I do not know exactly how many individuals went up and down the trail. It would just be a wild guess on my part. I dont want to do that. To your second question, chicago really starts dominating the whole slaughterhouse, shipping, stop yard trade by 1900. There were a lot of big firms prior to this. Farms. Kansas city, omaha, colorado. Refrigeration helped. There is no question about that. The consolidating of the slaughterhouse and shipping and the stock yards altogether is what led those chicago people to really come to dominate it. Then when you get the stories like up and sinclairs, the jungle about the conditions of working in the slaughterhouses. And chicago. Chicago came to dominate by 1900, but that was through a series of ruthless consolidations. Eventually, those stocky arent facilities, like the winds the new jersey close down. Pittsburgh. Eventually in those eastern cities they get closed down. We see that happening across kansas over the last 50 years as well. There is no stock yards in wichita anymore. Or in kansas city. And all the slaughter houses are moved primarily to the western portions of the state. You see the shifting occurring even during this time period. It was just in a little different manner given the technology at the time. applause i want to thank you. Youve been an attentive audience. And those were excellent questions. Once again, thank you for coming out tonight. From the kansas city public library, university of north dakota history professor, cynthia press scott. Talks about her book, pioneer mothers statues and monuments. She highlights some of the statues and monuments of pioneer mothers in the kansas city area. Welcome. Welcome everyone. Thank you for being here. My name is jeremy. I am manager of the Missouri Valley special collections. The local History Department and archives and the kansas city public library. Our Research Room is headquartered just across the hall from this auditorium. And our collection, you will find books, manuscripts and journals and other Research Materials documenting kansas citys early history as a frontier town, and outfitter forra