USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 20
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As is well known, the Texas "longhorn" of those days had charac- teristics of figure, proportion and disposition which were of equal fame with his value as beef. Texas fever or almost any evil imputation could more easily lodge against this animal than against the more sleek and docile appearing "farmer cattle," so that it is not strange that on the cattle exchanges "Texans" were usually quoted distinct and at marked disparity of price compared with those brought by other grades. The process of grading which worked out from Texas herds this longhorn breed was a long time in accomplishment, and in time practically covers the epoch of the range cattle industry as distinct from modern cattle ranching. Though the Texan cattle thus labored against adverse influences both at the hands of the buyer and of the consumer, none the less the range business, both through the profits to be derived and through the nature of the enterprise, attracted thousands of energetic men to its pursuit as long as the condi- tions necessary to its continuance existed.
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The decade of the seventies was marked with many developments in the cattle industry. Prices were up, the demand for cattle from Texas was not so critical, and it is estimated that 300,000 head were driven out of the state to Kansas points in the year 1870. Another factor that made the cattle traffic for that year profitable was a "freight war" between the trunk lines reaching to the Atlantic, the reduction in freight rates simply adding so much extra profit to the cattle shipper.
In 1871, as a consequence of the prosperity of the preceding year, the trails leading to the north were thronged with cattle, and the constant clouds of dust that hung daily along the trail, the ponderous tread of countless hoofs, and the tossing, glistening current of longhorns, pre- sented a spectacle the like of which will never be seen again. Six hundred thousand head of Texas cattle went into Kansas in 1871, and these num- bers were swelled by contributions from the other range states. But the drovers were not met by the eager buyers of the year before; corn-fed beef from the middle states had already partly satisfied the market: the economic and financial conditions of the country were not so good as in the year before; railroad rates were again normal-and as a result half of the Texas drive had to be turned on to the winter range in Kansas. A rigorous winter, with much snow following, and much of the pastur- age having already been close-cropped, thousands of cattle perished, and the year goes down in Texas cattle history as almost calamitous.
About this time the railroads were extending their lines to absorb the increasing cattle traffic, and several roads penetrating the cattle regions caused a change of base with regard to the movements of cattle. The Santa Fe reached the Colorado line late in 1872, and about the same time the M. K. & T. reached the Red river, furnishing a shipping point for Texas cattle at Denison. With the year 1872 the town of Abilene begins to lose its lurid reputation, its business advantages as well as its sins be- ing transferred to other railroad points; the extension of the railroads had much to do with this, but in the winter of 1871-72 there had also been a determined revolt on the part of the better element of citizenship, with the result that Abilene became a comparatively "straight" town and what it lost as a cattle center was recompensed by substantial business prosperity.
The year 1872 saw only about half the number of cattle in the pre- ceding year driven north, although better prices prevailed and the average quality of the stock was better. About this time Texas stockmen began the practice of transferring their cattle to the northern ranges for fatten-
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ing, a method which soon became one of the important features of the business.
Practically all the activities of North Texas came to an abrupt pause as a result of the panic of 1873, and the cattle business, being more "im- mediate" in its workings, suffered more severely than others. The pall of depression hung over the business world even before the colossal failure of Jay Cooke in September, so that the 400,000 Texas cattle that were driven north found the buyers apathetic to say the least. Many held off for better prices in the fall, only to be met with overwhelming disappoint- ment when the crash came. Naturally, the range cattle fared worse in competition with the farm cattle, which was nearly equal to the market demand. Everywhere there was oversupply and glutting of the mar- kets. Many Texans were in debt for money advanced by banks in pre- ceding seasons, and as no extensions of credit could be made there were hundreds of enterprising cowmen in Texas in that year who faced com- plete defeat, although Texas pluck and persistence saved them from anni- hilation. To such straits did the business come in that year that a consid- erable proportion of the cattle were sold to rendering plants, which were set up in various parts of the state as a direct result of the depression ; the hides, horns, hoofs and tallow were more profitable for a time than the beef. Conditions warranted these operations only a short time, and since then there has been no slaughtering of range cattle as a business proposition merely for the by-products.
To quote from a recent publication: "The period from 1865 to the close of 1873 was one of ups and downs in the live-stock industry on the plains; yet, notwithstanding the intervening misfortunes, and the actual disasters of 1873, the net results were represented by a great advance as to territory occupied and an immense increase in the number of animals that were eating the free grass of the ranges."
The cattle trade, said King Edward in 1873, might be called "an in- dolent industry-for it accomplishes great results in a lazy, disorderly way; and makes men millionaires before they have had time to arouse themselves and go to work. Cattle trading is a grand pastime with hun- dreds of Texans. They like the grandiloquent sound of a 'purchase of sixty thousand head.' There is something at once princely and patriarchal about it. They enjoy the adventurous life on the great grazing plains, the freedom of the ranch, the possibility of an Indian incursion, the swift coursing on horseback over the great stretches, the romance of the road. Nearly all the immense region from the Colorado to the Rio Grande is given up to stock-raising. The mesquite grass carpets the
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plains from end to end, and the horses, cattle and sheep luxuriate in it. The mountainous regions around San Antonio offer superb facilities for sheep husbandry; and the valleys along the streams are fertile enough for the most exacting farmer. There are millions.of cattle now scattered over the plains between San Antonio and the Rio Grande, and the num- ber is steadily increasing. * The cattle interest is rather heavily taxed for transportation, and suffers in consequence. In 1872 there were 450,000 cattle driven overland from western Texas to Kansas, through the Indian territory, by Bluff Creek and Caldwell, up the famous 'Chis- holm' trail. In 1871 as many as seven hundred thousand were driven across. But few cattle are transported by sea ; the outlet for the trade by way of Indianola has never been very successful. The Morgan steam- ships carry perhaps 40,000 beeves yearly that way. The two great shipping points in 1872-73 were Wichita, on the A., T. & S. F. R. R., and Ellsworth, on the Kansas Pacific R. R."
Much interest attaches to the series of developments by which the Texas cattle industry grew in importance during the years before 1873, and how from a limited and unprofitable market at the gulf ports the tide of cattle was turned to the north and was even then being directed toward new shipping centers with almost each succeeding year. New Orleans and the lower Mississippi points were the destinations for the earliest cattlemen. Then Memphis and St. Louis received the bulk of the trade; still later, Sedalia and Kansas City; Abilene had its infamous "boom" as a cowtown, and, later, Junction City, Wichita, Fort Dodge, and other railroad points in southern Kansas; but coincident with the construction of the M., K. & T. Railroad south through Indian terri- tory to Denison, which remained its terminal point for several years, the trail-herds of West and Southwest Texas were directed in an ever- increasing stream toward this part of North Texas. Nevertheless, the railroad mentioned must not be credited with establishing this general route for the drives; although it was a positive influence to this end, and the Denison terminal was a shipping point of more than ordinary magnitude, it remains true that a great part, perhaps a majority, of the cattle were driven past this point and on to the popular herding grounds in southeastern Kansas. The true explanation seems to be that this "Baxter Springs Trail," as it was long known, and which even in the sixties had become, much of the way, a well worn road, was a logical route to the northern markets; that the railroad, in following its gen- eral course, merely supplied an iron highway instead of the already favorite trail; and that the convergence of the cattle routes through
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Fort Worth, which began to attract marked notice in 1874, and the subsequent extension of the railroad facilities from the Red river to that point, were a series of events, based in the first instance on natural causes, that have raised Fort Worth to its pre-eminence as the cattle market of the Southwest.
It seems proper at this point, since we have adverted to the "Bax- ter Springs Trail," to note with some degree of particularity the other famous cattle trails with which every old-time cattleman is familiar, but which, being in the same historic category with the well-nigh forgotten stage routes, find little place in the general thought of the present gen- eration.
While Abilene held the center of the stage as a shipping point, the "Shawnee Trail" came into general use. This took its course through a more westerly part of the territory than the Baxter Springs route, crossing the Arkansas river near Fort Gibson, thence through the Osage Indian reservation to the Kansas line, and thence north to Abilene. The promoters of Abilene, in 1868, had this route shortened by surveying a direct trail south to the present city of Wichita, marking the course by small mounds of earth; this being the only instance when a cattle trail was located with anything like mathematical precision. The southern end of this trail, terminating at Wichita, was long used after Abilene ceased to be a shipping point.
There is a distinction to be drawn between the trails that were followed primarily as a route to market and those which were estab- lished as a highway of communication between the southern and the northern ranges. The "Baxter Springs Trail" seems to have combined both these features ; while the "Shawnee Trail" was principally used as the most convenient way to reach the railroad. Further to the west than either of these was the famous "Chisholm" or "Chisum" trail, which took its name from Jesse Chisholm, a half-breed Indian, and one of the earliest stockmen of the territory. This trail came into promi- nence after the custom had been established of transferring the south- ern cattle to the northern ranges, there to be held and fattened for market. Beginning at the Red river, it crossed the western portion of the present Oklahoma into Kansas, and during the seventies so many cattle were driven this way that it presented the appearance of a wide, beaten highway, stretching for miles across the country.
The other trail that deserves mention was the "Panhandle Trail," whose location is explained by the name, and which was likewise used
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principally for the transfer of Texas cattle to the ranges in Colorado or more northern states.
These trails, which were so called with laudable exactness of defini- tion, though leading with sufficient accuracy to certain destinations, were as sinuous in their smaller lengths as the proverbially crooked cow- path. This was especially true of the more westerly routes, where it was necessary for the drover to direct his herds so that a sufficient water and grass supply was each day accessible, these prime considera- tions making a meandering course the only feasible one in the plains country.
Notwithstanding that the years immediately following the panic of 1873 was a time of depression in the cattle business as well as other industries, there was a realignment of forces going on in Texas which was to make its influence felt when the time of prosperity again arrived. The natural economic resources which had lain dormant during the war and reconstruction period were just beginning to be touched by the wand of enterprise when the panic came, and though this cause op- erated as a serious check, it was only temporary, and when stability was once more restored to financial affairs Texas literally bounded forward along every line of progress. This fact is well stated in the following newspaper comment which appeared in April, 1875: "But a very few years ago the traffic in Texas cattle with the North was a very small affair. The first herds were driven into Kansas about eight years ago. Nearly every succeeding year witnessed an increased number until the aggregate of one season amounted to over six hundred thousand, and when estimated in dollars the aggregate for the past eight years will reach eighty millions. The peculiar condition of our state and people during the eight years in question, immediately succeeding the close of the war, rendered it necessary to expend the greater part of this sum in breadstuffs, clothing, wagons, agricultural implements, etc., so that very little of the money found its way back into Texas. A different state of affairs is manifest today, and the balance of trade is slowly swinging in our favor, being assisted by the increase in home manu- factures."
Also, about that time the movement became definite which has re- sulted in the extinction of the longhorn range cattle, so that at this writing one of the old-time "Texas steers" is a distinguished rarity in the markets. The prophecy of this modern state of affairs was thus couched in a Fort Worth Democrat editorial during the spring of 1874: "Several hundred head of blooded cattle have been imported into this
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county (Tarrant ) the past twelvemonth. These will," the editor states, "in a few years greatly improve the grade of cattle in the county. Stock- raising in considerable quantities will soon become obsolete in this section, and fewer numbers, of much finer grades, will be raised. It is conceded by stock-raisers of Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri that more money is realized by raising a few good cattle than from large numbers of ordinary breeds. Our farmers are beginning to appreciate this fact."
The prices for range stock during 1874 and 1875 remained very low, seldom rising above two dollars per hundred. This continued disparity
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of the Texas cattle in competition with other grades was no doubt a prin- cipal factor in convincing the Texas stockman of the necessity of improv- ing his breeds.
About this time there occurred a change in the meat products busi- . ness which amounted to a revolution and which alone made possible the development of the industry to its present status. This revolution in processes is well described in "Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Indus- try" (Denver and Kansas City, 1905), probably the most complete and authentic work of the kind yet published. Relative to this subject we quote : "The principal influence that was at work indirectly in behalf of western cattlemen at that time was the development of new features and new methods in the packing house industry. Theretofore the markets for
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fresh beef from these concerns had been, in the main, local in extent, and much of their beef output was in the form of salt-cured products. Ex- portation of beef on the hoof slowly but steadily was attaining greater magnitude at that time, but it was so hampered by foreign real or pre- tended fears of various alleged infections being introduced into Europe by American cattle, and also by agitation there in favor of home production, that it became necessary for our people to devise other ways and means of getting American beef into European markets. In this case the pack- ing house interests quickly solved the problem by sending the foreigners prime dressed beef carcasses that were above suspicion, criticism or ob- jection ; and with these went canned beef, and, as the new methods fur- ther were developed, a variety of other canned and potted beef products. New vehicles of transportation having been required for the dressed beef trade, they came forth without delay in the form of refrigerator cars on the railroads and refrigerator apartments in the ships. With these the packers at Chicago, Kansas City and other great market centers were en- abled to deliver beef carcasses on the farther side of the Atlantic in as perfect condition as that in which they were placed upon the blocks of re- tailers within sight of the packing houses ; and with these cars to extend their home trade in dressed beef to every part of the country accessible by railroad. This new branch of the packing house industry, which with- in a few years became the larger part of it, made its influence felt strongly in 1876, and in 1877 had risen to greater proportions. Its magnitude in 1878 was reflected in the fact that nearly forty per cent of all the live stock marketed in Chicago during the year, or about 500,000 head, went to consumers in the form of dressed beef from the packing houses of Chicago. At Kansas City and other packing house centers the dressed beef business held about the same ratio to the total number of cattle put upon the market."
The beginning of meat refrigeration and transportation is described in the issue of the Texas Almanac of 1870 :-
The San Marcos Pioneer publishes a letter from General D. A. Maury, of New Orleans, to Hon. S. F. Stockdale, of Indianola, in which it is stated that the plan of Messrs. Howard. Bray & Co., for transporting Texas beef, "killed on its native grasses, to any port of the world, without salting it, and without taint or damage, is generally admitted to be an established success"; and that these gentlemen are preparing to resume in the fall their operations on a very large scale. It is also stated that a cargo of fresh beef, killed and dressed near Indianola, and taken some weeks ago to New Orleans, was pronounced by all who saw and tasted it the best beef ever brought into the market. General Maury visited
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the warehouse of the above named company in New Orleans some weeks ago, and saw several thousand pounds of beef hanging in quarters, which had been slaughtered near Indianola nine days previously, and which was then free of any evidence of taint or sourness, and was as fresh and sweet as if it had just been killed. The temperature in the coolest place outside the warehouse was 90°; inside the warehouse it was 35°. We quote the concluding paragraphs of General Maury's letter:
"One can hardly doubt the complete success of this invention and its appli- cation, nor too highly estimate the magnitude of its results.
"Henceforth, instead of driving your emaciated, foot-sore, and perhaps dis- eased cattle to an unfavorable and uncertain market, thousands of miles away, you may establish your slaughter-house in Indianola, kill and dress your beeves with all their juices and freshness in them, hang them in your great refrigerative ships, and send them in perfect preservation to New Orleans, Liverpool, coast of Guinea, or Ceylon.
"There will be but little necessity for hard salt junk, and the consequent scurvy for sailors, and every man may breakfast daily on his tenderloin steak, whether his keel cleaves the Indian Ocean or the Arctic seas; and with due energy and judgment, you gentlemen of Texas may find your cattle, before twelve months have passed, independent of the malign legislation of the northern states, and once more a great staple production used by civilized men all over the world.
"There are many beneficial applications of the patent owned by these gen- tlemen, but the first, and the greatest, is the free exportation of your millions of cattle, and the way, too, that seems to have been surely opened to you."
The refrigerator car as an element in the cattle business of Texas re- ceives notice in May, 1877, in the following paragraph from the Fort Worth Democrat: "The first carload of fifty beeves in quarters, in a Tif- fany refrigerator car, which is just now coming into general use, was shipped yesterday from Fort Worth to St. Louis. Some two years ago a company was formed at Denison for shipping beef in refrigerator cars, but proved a failure. Tiffany has since improved the cars to commercial efficiency, and has provided ventilation so thorough and adapted to both summer and winter use as will enable meats to be carried almost any distance without taint or loss of flavor." Another issue of the same pa- per, commenting on this "wonderful discovery," goes on to assert that "so soon as the various railroad lines can supply their roads with these cars, beef and other meats will be slaughtered in the localities where raised and will be sent to market in dressed form, saving transporta- tion fees on offal and useless matter."
Quoting again from "Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry": "In 1876 there were probably not 3,000 white people in the whole region between the Eastland-Young-Archer-Wichita tier of counties and the eastern line of New Mexico, with the Panhandle thrown in. These later
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westward movements had located herds of cattle along many of the water courses, and there were some sheep scattered here and there on the drier uplands, where there was a shorter growth of herbage; the sheepmen, however, being so few in number, and the abundance of grass and water so plethoric, that their near presence was tolerated by the cattlemen, and therefore the two usually hostile interests got along together with but little friction for several years. The Texas cattle ranges, generally speak- ing, had hitherto been within the eastern and southern two-fifths of the state, for in 1876 there were not more than thirty or thirty-five cattle ranches that were conspicuous as to size in the central, northern and western parts of the state; an area, thus roughly defined, that contained upwards of 130,000 square miles, and which now embraces some ninety counties. Most of these larger ranches had been located pretty well toward the western side of the state, but many miles apart. Chisum's old ranch on the Concho river near Fort Concho was one of the very large ones; but there were four-the Townsend, the Hittson, the Black, and the Lynch outfits-in the section of which Eastland county is a part, for which 'range rights' were claimed over a scope of country close to one hundred miles square-an area nearly equal to that of the states of Massa- chusetts and Delaware combined. Fenced ranges were unknown there, and the supply of free grass was practically unlimited. Ranch supplies for most of the outfits had to be hauled by wagons hundreds of miles, com- munications with the outside world were infrequent, mail was received at long intervals, and the greater part of the market stock was driven northward."
But the climax of the range cattle business was now approaching. Not only were the farmer settlers crowding the cattlemen west, but the stock industry itself was proving so attractive that during the early eighties practically every square mile of the range country was utilized to the point of crowding. The rush to the range cattle country during those years was quite comparable to a mining rush, in the splendid visions of sudden wealth that actuated the participants, as also in the later failure and disappointment that swept into oblivion the majority of such fortune hunters. The glamour of romance and the gleam of riches had been thrown over the cattle range. Its stern aspects, its hardships, its sacri- ficing toil, were subordinated to its picturesque features, which many an old cattleman will dispute ever having existed elsewhere than on the pages of romance. The titles "cattle king" and "cattle baron," coined probably by some zealous newspaper man, sounded impressive to the uninitiated and were often an all-sufficient stimulus to the ambition of an easterner plod-
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