Chisholm Trail

The Chisholm Trail was a Herdenweg in the United States for the cattle drive from South Texas to the loading station located 500 miles ( 800 km ) northerly Abilene, Kansas.

The trail was used primarily between the years 1867 and 1887 to bring the cattle to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, from where it was transported to the East. The Chisholm Trail was the western route of the so-called Texas Roadhouse (also East Shawnee Trail ). He was named after Jesse Chisholm, who had established a series of trading posts ( trade and postal stations ) before the American Civil War along this route, which were the only infrastructure in the steppes. He himself never used the trail for their own cattle drives.

History

Because of the American Civil War, the Confederate Texas cattle could not be delivered to the existing customers in the Unionist north for several years, so that the herds grew and prices fell. 1866, the price of a cow in Texas only 4 dollars, while in the north and in the eastern states, he was more at $ 40.

Opened in 1867 Joseph G. McCoy Stockyards (English: Stockyard ) in Abilene, Kansas. He encouraged Texas ranchers to drive their flocks to its hubs, which thus already in the same year the largest stockyards were west of Kansas City.

OW Wheeler and his partner took advantage of the Chisholm Trail and led in 1867 a herd of 2400 cattle to Abilene. These were the first Texan total of 5 million head of cattle, which reached Kansas over the Chisholm Trail.

From 1867 to 1871, the Trail ended in Abilene. Later, Newton, Kansas, and Wichita, Kansas, as Verladebahnhöfe served. From 1883 to 1887 formed Cladwell, Kansas, the end of the trail.

1885 began the importance of cattle drives through the construction of the Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad subside.

Movies

• The Old Chisholm Trail ( 1942), by Elmer Clifton
• Red River (1948 ) by Howard Hawks