A cattle town was a frontier settlement in the Midwestern United States that catered to the cattle industry. The economies of these communities were heavily dependent on the seasonal cattle drives from Texas, which brought the cowboys and the cattle that these towns relied upon.[1] Cattle towns were found at the junctions of railroads and livestock trails. These towns were the destination of the cattle drives, the place where the cattle would be bought and shipped off to urban meatpackers, midwestern cattle feeders, or to ranchers on the central or northern plains.[1] Cattle towns were made famous by popular accounts of rowdy cowboys and outlaws who were kept under control by local lawmen, but those depictions were mostly exaggeration and myth.[1]
Joseph McCoy's Drover's Hotel, McCoy's Stock Yard, Abilene, Kansas, 1867
The first cattle town was Abilene, which was made into a market for Texan cattle in 1867. The town of Abilene was a prosperous cattle market until farmers took all of its outlying ranges, which completely severed Abilene's link to the trail.[1] Ellsworth, Newton, and Wichita replaced Abilene as the major cattle towns in 1872. These three towns found themselves on rival railroads and competed for the cattle trade. In 1875 the three of them Ellsworth, Newton and Wichita lost access to the cattle trails because of expansive rural settlement around the towns.[1]Dodge City became the major cattle town in 1876, and Caldwell joined it in 1880, but both towns were closed to the cattle trade in 1885 when Kansas outlawed the importation of Texan cattle.[1]
Nebraska
As many Texan cattle drivers became dissatisfied with the Kansas Pacific Railroad, they began to look to the lower prices of the Union Pacific. Additionally the influx of settlers, farmers and ranchers onto what used to be the cattle trails in Kansas and Nebraska forced old towns to be abandoned and new ones to be founded.[2]
The first cattle town in Nebraska was Schuyler in 1870, but settlers flooded into the area, forcing the cattle drivers to find a new marketplace. The next town in Nebraska was Kearney, but just like in Schuyler, the settling of the surrounding lands blocked it off from the cattle trail. Ogallala finally took its place as the cowboy capital of Nebraska in 1873. It was known as a fairly rough and tumble town, as many of the cattle towns were, and saw 17 violent deaths during the peak of the cattle boom.[2]
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Cheyenne, with its easy access to the railroad, became the center of the Wyoming cattle trade. It differed from the usual cattle towns in that it was also a social and cultural center, known for its opera house, Atlas Theatre, Cheyenne Club, Inter-Ocean Hotel, and large number of businesses and mansions. Some of its best known residents were Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane. Unlike other cattle towns Cheyenne had a diverse economy and did not rely solely on the cattle trade, which allowed it to prosper though the off season and recover from economic fluctuations.[3]
Miles City, Montana
Miles City was always a stopping point on the cattle drives from Texas, a place to fatten the herd before market. In 1881 the Northern Pacific Railroad extended its line through the city,[4] and in 1884 the Montana Stockgrowers Association was formed there making it a leading cattle market.[5]
Medora, North Dakota
Medora was long the center of the cattle trade in North Dakota. Local ranchers brought their cattle to the Medora stock yards. The Medora Grazing Association helped to maintain the industry. In addition to the local ranchers, many other ranchers from all over North Dakota would drive their cattle to Medora for shipment.[6]
Cowboys
Cowboys filled an interesting role in cattle town politics. On the one hand they were typically seen as the source of the vice that the Victorian moralist movement sought to remove from their communities. On the other, the cattle towns themselves were supported by the industries of vice in which the cowboys partook while they spent the offseason there. Thus the "respectful" inhabitants of the cattle towns had to endure the rowdiness of the cowboys because they were what allowed the towns to survive economically. This would remain the case until farmers took up all the land surrounding the cattle towns, which allowed them to survive without the profits of the cattle trade.[7]
Though the "respectable" townsfolk could not change or remove the cowboys, who they depended upon, they were able to impose restrictions upon the businesses that they frequented. In Abilene, for example, a Red Light District emerged in 1868. Saloons and brothels were open all day and night, frustrating the decent townsfolk to no end. At the time the Topeka Commonwealth wrote, "Hell is now in session in Abilene." Abilene's Red Light District stood north of town, but Mayor Joseph McCoy moved it to the east. Of the businesses moved, most were the brothels that the decent citizens hated so fervently. The town segregated the new district from the rest of town, allowing them to distance themselves from the immoral behavior of the cowboys. This new district became known as McCoy's addition or the Devil's Half-Acre.[8]
In contrast, the actual profession of the cowboys was seen by many people as cheerful, lively, and pleasant, at least to the regular townsfolk and onlookers,[8] though in reality being a cowboy was thankless and grueling work. They had to go months on end with only the company of other cowboys and their cattle. This lead many to believe that cowboys were hard workers who chose a tough career path because that is what they wanted. These virtues, that of hard work and pleasant dispositions contrasted with their inclination to indulge in drinking, gambling and prostitution. Many people formed an ambiguous mythological ideal of the cowboys, that included the virtues of hard work, which was an American ideal, and that mingled with the vices that they liked to indulge in.[8]
Conflict
Many people who lived within and surrounding the cattle towns were opposed to the cattle drives. These critics were of two main groups, the farmers and the townspeople themselves.[7] As agriculture spread from the cattle towns into outlying ranges the cattle trails were cut off, and the cowboys would have to steer their herd through the fields and pastures of the farmers. The latter feared the trampling of their crops as well as an influx of Texas fever. Texas fever is a disease spread by ticks that live on the Texas Longhorn cattle. The Longhorns have a natural immunity to it, but it is nearly 100% fatal among other breeds of livestock.[9] The townspeople themselves also took issue with the cattle drives. They opposed the growing number of saloons, gambling, and prostitution that catered to the cowboys that came into town with the cattle.[7]
Victorian movement
In the early days of the cattle towns, the leaders were among the "sporting class," a group of saloon owners, gamblers, entertainers, providers of services, prostitutes and lawmen. In the beginning it was the saloon owners who ran the cattle towns, as their establishments were at the center of town and brought in a good deal of money. Over time however leadership of these communities fell into the hands of the "respectable class," which included merchants, stockmen, professionals, craftsmen, farmers, and domestic servants. Both groups thought of tasks like fighting fires, getting water, removing sewage and funding schools as private affairs rather than falling to the public domain.[7]
This shift in the leadership to a more respectable group of people was further perpetuated by the influx of eastern Victorian culture to the frontier cattle towns. This development was, in large part, catalyzed by the movement of women to these frontier settlements. Women provided a stabilizing effect on communities, creating roots in the form of families that encouraged eastern Victorian virtues and eclipsed the cattle towns' rough and tumble cowboy ways of old.[7]
Myths
Cattle towns are remembered as some of the most dangerous places on earth, where outlaws, lawmen, and cowboys shot it out and slugged it out day by day. In fact this was not at all the case. Cattle towns had lower rates of homicide than eastern cities. Towns like Wichita were slandered by non-cattle towns like Topeka, who stated that Wichita was a place of murder, riots, and racism. They even went so far as to say that Wichita was infested with the Ku Klux Klan. Wichita responded to these accusations, noting that there were no murders in Wichita and that the city was orderly and civilized. As stated in the local newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, the citizens of Wichita drank less, brawled less, gambled less, and harbored fewer "scandalous" women than the city of Topeka.[8] These conflicting statements prove that even at the time myth and rumor were more prevalent than the truth, which is that for the most part cattle towns were rowdier than ordinary cities but were not the hotbed of crime and violence that many claimed.
Dickinson County is a county in Central Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Abilene. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 18,402. The county was named in honor of Daniel Dickinson, a U.S. Senator from New York that was a Kansas statehood advocate.
Abilene is a city in, and the county seat of, Dickinson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 6,460. It is home of The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum and the Greyhound Hall of Fame.
Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County, Kansas, United States, named after nearby Fort Dodge. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 27,788. The city is known in American culture for its history as a wild frontier town of the Old West.
Woodward is a city in and the county seat of Woodward County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the largest city in a nine-county area. The population was 11,975 at the United States Census.
The American frontier, also known as the Old West, popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last few contiguous western territories as states in 1912. This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist attitude known as "Manifest Destiny" and the historians' "Frontier Thesis". The legends, historical events and folklore of the American frontier have embedded themselves into United States culture so much so that the Old West, and the Western genre of media specifically, has become one of the defining periods of American national identity.
The U.S. state of Kansas, located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, was the home of nomadic Native American tribes who hunted the vast herds of bison. In around 1450 AD, the Wichita People founded the great city of Etzanoa. The city of Etzanoa was abandoned in around 1700 AD. The region was explored by Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. Most of Kansas became permanently part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. When the area was opened to settlement by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 it became a battlefield that helped cause the American Civil War. Settlers from North and South came in order to vote slavery down or up. The free state element prevailed.
The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the post-Civil War era to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The trail was established by Black Beaver, a Lenape guide and rancher, and his friend Jesse Chisholm, a Cherokee merchant. They collected and drove numerous cattle along the trail to Kansas, where they could be shipped east to achieve higher prices. The southern terminus was Red River Station, a trading post near the Red River along the northern border of Texas. The northern terminus was a trading post near Kansas City, Kansas. Chisholm owned both of these posts. In the years of the cattle drives, cowboys drove large herds from ranches across Texas to the Red River Station and then north to Kansas City.
The Texas Road, also known as the Shawnee Trail, Sedalia Trail, or Kansas Trail, was a major trade and emigrant route to Texas across Indian Territory. Established during the Mexican War by emigrants rushing to Texas, it remained an important route across Indian Territory until Oklahoma statehood. The Shawnee Trail was the earliest and easternmost route by which Texas Longhorn cattle were taken to the north. It played a significant role in the history of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas in the early and mid-1800s.
Joseph "Cowboy" McCoy was a 19th-century entrepreneur known for promoting the transport of Longhorn cattle from Texas to the eastern United States.
The Abilene Trail was a cattle trail leading from Texas to Abilene, Kansas. Its exact route is disputed owing to its many offshoots, but it crossed the Red River just east of Henrietta, Texas, and continued north across the Indian Territory to Caldwell, Kansas and on past Wichita and Newton to Abilene. The first herds were probably driven over it in 1866, though it was not named until Abilene was established in 1867.
Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in Louisiana and points east. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.
A Western saloon is a kind of bar particular to the Old West. Saloons served customers such as fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, lumberjacks, businessmen, lawmen, outlaws, miners, and gamblers. A saloon might also be known as a "watering trough, bughouse, shebang, cantina, grogshop, and gin mill". The first saloon was established at Brown's Hole, Wyoming, in 1822, to serve fur trappers.
The Long Branch Saloon was a well-known saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, from about 1874 to 1885. It had several owners, most notably Chalk Beeson and gunfighter Luke Short. The establishment provided gambling and live entertainment, including Beeson's five-person orchestra. It was the scene of several altercations, shoot-outs, gunfights, and standoffs often associated with cattle towns in the American wild west. Most famous was the 1879 Long Branch Saloon Gunfight, in which Frank Loving killed Levi Richardson.
Ben Thompson was a gunman, gambler, and sometimes lawman of the Old West. He was a contemporary of "Buffalo" Bill Cody, Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin, and "Wild Bill" Hickok, some of whom considered him a friend, others an enemy. Thompson fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and later for Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. After he was hired in 1881 as marshal in Austin, Texas, the crime rate reportedly dropped sharply. Thompson was murdered at the age of 40 in San Antonio, Texas, in the "Vaudeville Theater Ambush."
The Great Western Cattle Trail was used during the late 19th century for movement of cattle and horses to markets in eastern and northern states. It is also known as the Western Trail, Fort Griffin Trail, Dodge City Trail, Northern Trail and Texas Trail. It replaced the Chisholm trail when that closed. While it wasn't as well known, it was greater in length, reaching railheads up in Kansas and Nebraska and carried longhorns and horses to stock open-range ranches in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and two provinces in Canada. It took almost one hundred days to reach their destination.
The timeline of Kansas details past events that happened in what is present day Kansas. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, the U.S. state of Kansas was the home of sedentary agrarian and hunter-gatherer Native American societies, many of whom hunted American bison. The region first appears in western history in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, when Spanish conquistadors explored the unknown land now known as Kansas. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. It became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the 19th century, the first American explorers designated the area as the "Great American Desert."
Thomas James Smith, also known as Tom "Bear River" Smith, was a lawman in the American Old West and briefly marshal of cattle town Abilene, Kansas. He was killed and nearly decapitated in the line of duty.
Old Cowtown Museum is an accredited history museum located in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is located next to the Arkansas River in central Wichita. The Museum was established in 1952, and is one of the oldest open-air history museums in central United States with 54 historic and re-created buildings, including a period farm and out-buildings, situated on 23 acres of land off the original Chisholm Trail. Cowtown is a combination of attraction, museum, living history site, and historic preservation project. It is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit institution.
The Hunnewell gunfight was an Old West gunfight occurring in Hunnewell, Kansas occurring on August 21, 1884. The gunfight involved no known gunmen.
The frontier gambler is one of the most recognizable stock characters of the 19th century American frontier. Historically, gamblers were of both sexes, came from a variety of professions and class and geographical backgrounds, were of many different nationalities, and were part of a well-respected profession. As the west became increasingly populated and domesticated, the public perception of gambling changed to a negative one and led nearly all of the state and territorial legislatures to pass anti-gambling laws in and effort to "clean up" their towns. The gambler continues to be a captivating figure in the imagery of the west, representing the openness of its society and invoking its association with risk-taking.
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