Destination: Kansas

The Sedalia Trail to the rail yards in Missouri was full of danger and less than profitable after the Long Drive of 1866.  John McCoy, cattle agent, knew of a better and safer way - via a tiny town (if it was even a town) in north-central Kansas along the Kansas-Pacific Railroad called Abilene.
McCoy was establishing cattle pens in 1867 to receive Texas cattle.  The herds would be shipped in open cars to Kansas City and then on to Chicago by way of the St. Joseph Railroad which had favorable terms for shipping cattle.

The advantage of McCoy's plan for Texans was in his own words, "to establish at some accessible point a depot or market to which a Texan driver could bring his stock unmolested...to establish a market whereas Southern drivers and Northern buyers would meet upon an equal footing and both be undisturbed by mobs or swindling thieves."

McCoy described Abilene as a "very small, dead place, consisting of about a dozen log huts."  The West's first cattle town, despite its humble beginnings, could be reached from Texas by the established Chisholm Trail.  There were no irate farmers armed against diseased cattle nor outlaw posses waiting in ambush.

Trader Jesse Chisholm never drove any Texas cattle north to Kansas even though the famous cattle trail bears his name.The trail ran from the coastal plains of Texas northward through Indian Territory to the rail yards located in Kansas. 

Jesse Chisholm, half Cherokee, ran a trading post on the Arkansas River near present-day Wichita.  Chisholm was highly respected by the Indians.  In 1865 he pointed his trade wagon southward into Indian Territory where he planned to trade with tribes around Fort Cobb on the Washita River.  A herder heading north from Texas crossed into Indian Territory, found Chisholm's wagon ruts and followed them north into Kansas.

During his trips, Chisholm ransomed white captives from the Indians and held open house for the tribesmen who came to trade and seek his advice.  After his death in 1868, the Indians said he "spoke with a strange tongue."  Whites gave him a grave marker that proclaimed, "No one left his home cold or hungry."

Next time...Kansas prospers
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On July 5, 1865, in the East End of London, revivalist preacher William Booth and his wife Catherine establish the Christian Mission, later known as the Salvation Army. Determined to wage war against the evils of poverty and religious indifference with military efficiency, Booth modeled his Methodist sect after the British army, labeling uniformed ministers as “officers” and new members as “recruits.”