End of an Era - Part 2

Along with the invention of barbed wire, there was one other contribution to the decline of the cattle baron.  Once fencing covered the vast ranches of the West, nature took over...

For years the cattle lands had benefited from moderate weather, spring rains were plentiful, grass was thick and green, and the winters were mild.  Cattle roamed free year round.  Then came the winter of 1885-86.  It was brutally cold and cattle simply froze to death by the thousands.  The summer of 1886 was extremely hot and dry without the rains to grow the lush grass.  Cattle starved to death from the lack of food.  Ranchers thought to get rid of the rest of their herd to make a profit and took as little as $8 a head on the market.

Next came the winter of 1886-87.  Blizzards began in November and continued for months.  The new fencing kept the cattle from being able to keep ahead of the snow as they had in the past.  Temperatures went as low as 70 degrees below zero and the cattle were trapped together in the blizzards where they again froze to death by the thousands.  It the spring most ranchers found the efforts of their lifetime gone in one season. The ones who had not dumped cattle on the market before, not did so now, creating a glut of beef.  The price of beef plummeted by 40%. 

Most ranchers went bankrupt.  Some recovered and prospered again but in a different way.  Ranches became farms as well as cattle ranches -growing hay as a commodity.  Never again would the vast cattle ranches cover the West.  The reasons - fencing and nature.  One was controllable while the other wasn't.  Without fencing, the cattle would probably have survived, at least for a time.  Nature, however, would have her way - she always does.

Next time...Making of a Myth
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On August 27, 1875 the powerful western capitalist William Ralston is found drowned in San Francisco Bay hours after resigning from the Bank of California.  He was one of the first men to build a major financial empire in the Far West.