Baxter Springs is a city in Cherokee County, Kansas, United States, and located along Spring River. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,888.
U.S. Route 69 (US 69) is a major north–south United States highway. When it was first created, it was only 150 miles (241 km) long, but it has since been expanded into a Minnesota to Texas cross-country route. The highway's southern terminus is in Port Arthur, Texas at an intersection with State Highway 87. Its northern terminus is in Albert Lea, Minnesota at Minnesota State Highway 13.
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of UP.
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the trail served as a vital commercial highway until 1880, when the railroad arrived in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was near the end of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which carried trade from Mexico City. The trail was later incorporated into parts of the National Old Trails Road and U.S. Route 66.
Oliver Loving was an American rancher and cattle driver. Together with Charles Goodnight, he developed the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was mortally wounded by Native Americans while on a cattle drive.
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 Cherokee Trail was a historic overland trail through the present-day U.S. states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming that was used from the late 1840s up through the early 1890s. The route was established in 1849 by a wagon train headed to the gold fields in California. Among the members of the expedition were a group of Cherokee. When the train formed in Indian Territory, Lewis Evans of Evansville, Arkansas, was elected Captain. Thus, this expedition is sometimes written as the Evans/Cherokee Train. In 1850 four wagon trains turned west on the Laramie Plains, along Wyoming's southern border to Fort Bridger.
Joseph "Cowboy" McCoy was a 19th-century entrepreneur known for promoting the transport of Longhorn cattle from Texas to the eastern United States.
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 St. Louis and points east, and direct to Chicago. 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.
The Great Western Cattle Trail is the name used today for a cattle trail used during the late 19th century for moving beef stock 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 ran west of and roughly parallel to the better known Chisholm Trail into Kansas, reaching an additional major railhead there for shipping beef to Chicago, or longhorns and horses continuing on further north by trail to stock open-range ranches in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and two provinces in Canada. A full-length drive from the trailhead south of Bandera, Texas took almost one hundred days to reach its destination in Kansas.
Preston Trail, later known as the Old Preston Road, was a road created by the Republic of Texas in 1841 from Preston, Texas on the Red River south to Austin, Texas. This road closely followed an existing trail that led across the area that had been used for centuries. This road was a main transportation artery from Central Texas to North Texas in the latter half of the 19th century. Today, Texas State Highway 289 follows near this former road.
A cattle drive is the process of moving a herd of cattle from one place to another, usually moved and herded by cowboys on horses.
Thomas Lopton Campbell Jr. was a nineteenth-century American pioneer and Texas Ranger. Campbell pioneered the American frontier in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. He fought in the Black Hawk War and served as a Texas Ranger from 1839 until the secession of Texas from the Union. Campbell, along with Texas Governor Sam Houston, was a prominent spokesman for remaining in the Union prior to the Civil War. Targeted as the most widely known Union supporter in the Austin area, on the day Texas voted to secede from the Union Campbell was publicly humiliated on the streets of the Capitol when a crowd of Secessionists held him captive and forced him to "fire" the anvils in celebration of secession. Campbell and his family left Texas the next day to run supply routes for the Union and pioneer lands in Missouri and Kansas. Later, at the age of 79, Campbell would pioneer a claim in the Land Run of 1889 in Oklahoma.
Preston, also known as Preston Bend, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located on the Red River in Grayson County, Texas, United States. It grew in the 19th century at the intersection of several military and trade roads and was an important crossing on the Shawnee cattle trail. Preston lost prominence after the MK&T railroad bypassed the town to the east, leading to a decline in traveler and cattle drive traffic. Much of its former town site is submerged beneath the waters of Lake Texoma. Its population was 2,096 as of the 2010 census.
The Goodnight–Loving Trail was a trail used in the cattle drives of the late 1860s for the large-scale movement of Texas Longhorns. It is named after cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving.
In the history of the American frontier, pioneers built overland trails throughout the 19th century, especially between 1829 and 1870, as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States did so with various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move from their homes to destinations further west via routes such as the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again encouraged mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further encouraged settlers to travel overland to the west.
Nelson Story Sr. was a pioneer Montana entrepreneur, cattle rancher, miner and vigilante, who was a notable resident of Bozeman, Montana. He was best known for his 1866 cattle drive from Texas with approximately 1000 head of Texas Longhorns to Montana along the Bozeman Trail—the first major cattle drive from Texas into Montana. His business ventures in Bozeman were so successful that he became the town's first millionaire. In 1893, he played a prominent role in the establishment of the Agricultural College of the State of Montana by donating land and facilities. He built the first Story Mansion on Main Street in Bozeman in 1880 and later built today's Story Mansion at the corner of Willson and College for his son, T. Byron Story in 1910. In his later years, he became a prominent real estate developer in Los Angeles, California.
Black Beaver or Se-ket-tu-may-qua was a trapper and interpreter who worked for the American Fur Company. He served as a scout and guide as he was fluent in English, as well as several European and Native American languages. He is credited with establishing the California and Chisholm trails.
Montford Thomas Johnson was Chickasaw and a cattleman who lived in Indian Territory, what is now the present-day state of Oklahoma. Johnson was a well-known and respected entrepreneur, noted for his successful ranching operation that spanned a large area of central Oklahoma, including parts of what would eventually become Oklahoma City.
Tom Candy Ponting was an American rancher, farmer and cattle driver. In 1853–1854, together with his business partner, Washington Malone, they were the first people to drive a herd of Texas Longhorn cattle from Texas to New York City, the longest cattle drive in American history.
