Northward Bound

As early as 1853 a longhorn herd was on an Illinois prairie being readied for New York, providing the citizens with the rare sight of steer running down the narrow streets.  California was another early potential market in the 1850s, but its once thriving cattle industry had been on the decline since the gold rush.  Texans rounded up herds and crossed the long and dangerous journey to sell longhorns to California at $200 a head in order to feed the miners. 

Some 50,000 Texan steers were taken through New Mexico and Arizona until the Californian ranchers finally caught on to what was happening and began providing their own cattle inside California territory, leaving Texas out of the profits.  In fact if cattle were needed outside California, a delegation needed to be sent to purchase and drive them home.

After the Civil War, Texas was desperate for a revenue source.  As a Confederacy state, they had suffered during and after the war.  The only immediate resource available was 5 million head of cattle roaming the grasslands, most of them unattended, unclaimed and unbranded.  These self-reliant and hardy animals were virtually worthless, but in the North they would be valuable - if they could be gotten to market.

Ranchers like Charles Goodnight found their herds scattered after the war as well.  There was no way to tell whose calves had been born.  The difference between rancher and rustler vanished.  Goodnight reported that "men could not resist the temptation to brand cattle for themselves."  Of the 8000 head he and his brother had collected, he also had a few he had gotten on the "free range."

The reasons ranchers ignored the practices going on was the price of cattle in places like Missouri where a head was worth 10 times what it was in Texas.  The new railroads could ship the cattle for big profits from St. Joseph, Missouri.  Ranchers, along with their trail hands, referred to the journey to the railroad yards as "The Long Drive."

Here is some Cowboy Lingo:
Airin' the Lungs:  Cussing
Biscuit Shooter:  the ranch cook
Dally: a half hitch of rope around a saddle horn used when roping
Dog House: the bunkhouse
Flea Trap: a cowboy's bedroll
Greasy Belly:  a cook
Hay Shaker: a farmer
Hot Rock: a biscuit

More next time...
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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 18, 1983, aboard the Challenger shuttle was Dr. Sally Ride, who as a mission specialist became the first American woman to travel into space. During the six-day mission, Ride, an astrophysicist from Stanford University, operated the shuttle’s robot arm, which she had helped design.