A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 25

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 25

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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 mis- fortunes, 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."

Beginning with the year 1874 North and West Texas enters as an ever-increasing factor into the live-stock industry. We may safely set that year as approximately inaugurating the period of development which has culminated in the focusing of live-stock traffic at Fort Worth and the making of that city a packing-house center which men of acutest business judgment assert will become the second center in point of size and importance in the United States. It remains for succeeding pages to show how the laudable enterprise of citizens effected this splendid result by organized and co-operative effort; while here we wish to consider the foundation of resources and the drift of circumstances which made such effort possible. As has been well observed, world progress is seldom the result of reform, but comes from a continual process of adaptation to chang- ing conditions. From this viewpoint, we find added interest in the series of developments by

which the Texas cattle industry grew in im- portance 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 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 cat- tlemen. Then Memphis and St. Louis received the bulk of the trade ; still later, as we have seen, Sedalia and Kansas City; Abilene had its in- famous "boom" 'as a cow town, and, later, Junc- tion City, Wichita, Fort Dodge, and other rail- road points in southern Kansas; but coincident with the construction of the M., K. & T. Rail- road south through Indian Territory 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 ; al- though 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 cat- tle, were driven past this point and onto the pop- ular herding grounds in southeastern Kansas. The true explanation seems to be that this "Bax- ter 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 fol- lowing its general course, merely supplied an iron highway instead of the already favorite trail ; and that the convergence of the cattle routes through Fort Worth, which began to attract marked no- tice in 1874, and the subsequent extension of the railroad facilities from the Red river to that point, were a concatenation of events, based in the first instance on natural causes, that have raised Fort Worth to its pre-eminence as the cat- tle market of the southwest.

It seems proper at this point, since we have ad- verted to the "Baxter Springs Trail," to note with some degree of particularity the other fa- mous cattle trails with which every old-time cat- tleman is familiar, but which, being in the same

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

historic category with the well-nigh forgotten stage routes, find little place in the general thought of the present generation.

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, mark- ing the course by small mounds of earth; this being the only instance when a cattle trail was located with anything like mathematical preci- sion. 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 established as a highway of communication between the southern and the northern ranges. The "Baxter Springs Trail" seems to have combined both these fea- tures ; 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 prominence after the custom had been established of trans- ferring the southern cattle to the northern ranges, there to be held and fattened for market. Begin- ning at the Red river, it crossed the western por- tion 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 princi- pally 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 definition, though leading with suf-

ficient accuracy to certain destinations, were as sinuous in their smaller lengths as the proverbial- ly crooked cowpath. This was especially true of the more westerly routes, where it was necessary for the drover to direct his herds so that a suffi- cient water and grass supply was each day ac- cessible, these prime considerations 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 depres- sion in the cattle business as well as other indus- tries, 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 of North Texas, which had lain dormant during the war and re- construction period, were just beginning to be touched by the wand of enterprise when the panic came, and though this cause operated as a serious check, it was only temporary, and when stability was once more restored to financial affairs, North and West Texas literally bounded forward along every line of progress. This fact is well stated in the following newspaper comment which ap- peared 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 condi- tion 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, cloth- ing, wagons, agricultural implements, etc., so that very little of the money found its way back into Texas. A different state of affairs is mani- fest today, and the balance of trade is slowly swinging in our favor, being assisted by the in- crease in home manufactures."

Also, about that time the movement became definite which has resulted in the extinction of the long-horn range cattle, so that at this writing one of the old-time "Texas steers" is a distin-

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

guished 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 blood- ed cattle have been imported into this 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 ob- solete in this section, and fewer numbers, of much finer grades, will be raised. It is conceded by stock-raisers of Kentucky, Illinois and Mis- souri that more money is realized by raising a few good cattle than from large numbers of or- dinary breeds. Our farmers are beginning to ap- preciate this fact."

The prices for range stock during 1874 and 1875 remained very low, seldom rising above two dollars per hundred. This continued disparity of the Texas cattle in competition with other grades was no doubt a principal factor in convincing the Texas stockman of the necessity of improving his breeds.

The advance of the small farmers into the cattle country during this time was dispossessing the stockman of much of his free range, and here- after we find a steady westward migration of the cattlemen toward the plains country and even beyond the Texas border into New Mexico and Arizona. As already stated, Charles Goodnight established his headquarters in the Panhandle in 1876, and many others followed his example.

Varying estimates are placed upon the amount of the cattle drive of the year 1875 to Kansas and the northern markets, the very nature of such a computation affording a large range of error, and for that reason all figures pertaining to this feature of the cattle business must be taken and applied with caution. But admitting that the number of the drive for that year was somewhat over two hundred thousand, it seems, according to like evidence, that three-fourths of the total drive passed through Fort Worth and on up the "Baxter Springs" route, either by rail or over- land. Fifty thousand head were said to have passed through Fort Worth in the first week of May of that year. The significance of these state- ments lies in the fact that Fort Worth, at a time

when her population was not three thousand, was recognized by her enterprising citizens and by the cattle fraternity at large as a market and shipping point of first degree in importance. And this recognition seemed thus to be given in spite of the fact that no railroad had as yet reached the town and that the railroad which seemed about to come did not court the cattle traffic. Relative to the latter assertion, it appears that, whereas the railroads in Kansas had agents placed at various points throughout the field to solicit personally and in writing the cattle traffic, the Texas and Pacific made no such efforts to win a share of stock shipments. It is also shown that during 1874 the cattle traffic that went by the M., K. & T. route paid over eight hundred thou- sand dollars in freight charges. In this connec- tion an interesting comparison is made between the various roads that carried the Texas cattle to market for the year of 1875. From these items it is shown that the number of cattle transported by the Kansas Pacific for the year mentioned was 81,348; by the M., K. & T., 70,000 ; the A., T. & S. F., 34,400 ; the T. & P., 20,000 ; the L., L. & G., 19,537, and K. C., F. S. & G., 12,730-indi- cating that the bulk of the traffic was still over the northern lines, although the Texas and Pa- cific penetrated further into the cattle country than any other road. This is accounted for large- ly by the fact that the Kansas Pacific drew its shipments almost entirely from the western trails, which were growing in favor ; from the fact, fur- thermore, that many stockmen preferred to drive their cattle across the Territory to the feeding and grazing grounds of southern Kansas, there to remain until the stock was fit for shipment ; and also from the grounds that are deduced in the following editorial: "We are often asked why the great bulk of Texas cattle are driven five or six hundred miles into Kansas for ship- ment to St. Louis or Chicago markets, when the T. & P. or the M., K. & T. furnish a much more direct and shorter route. This is to be an-' swered, first, by the explanation that there are no agents or solicitors on the ground for these roads; and, secondly, that 2,000 head or 100 car- loads of cattle transported by the M., K. & T. to St. Louis cost for freight $10,000, or by the T. &

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P., from Eagleford or Dallas to St. Louis, $11,- 500 ; while to drive two thousand head to Ells- worth, Kansas, costs $1,000, and thence by rail to St. Louis, $7,500, or $8,500 in all-a difference in favor of the Kansas routes amounting to $1,- 500 in the case of the M., K. & T., and $3,000 in the case of the T. & P."

About this time there occurred a change in the meat products business which amounted to a rev- olution and which alone made possible the devel- opment of the industry to its present status. This revolution in processes is well described in "Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry" (Denver and Kansas City, 1905), probably the most com- plete and authentic work of the kind yet pub- lished. Relative to this subject we quote:

"The principal influence that was at work in- directly 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 fresh beef from these concerns had been, in the main, local in ex- tent, and much of their beef output was in the form of salt-cured products. Exportation of beef on the hoof slowly but steadily was attaining greater magnitude at that time, but it was so hampered by foreign real or pretended 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 Euro- pean markets. In this case the packing-house in- terests quickly solved the problem by sending the foreigners prime dressed beef carcasses that were above suspicion, criticism, or objection ; and with these went canned beef, and, as the new methods further were developed, a variety of other canned and potted beef products. New vehicles of trans- portation 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 enabled to deliver beef carcasses on the further side of the Atlantic in as perfect condition as that in which they were placed upon the blocks of retailers 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 within 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 mag- nitude in 1878 was reflected in the fact that near- ly 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 mar- ket."

The refrigerator car as an element in the cat- tle business of North Texas receives notice in May, 1877, in the following paragraph from the Democrat: "The first carload of fifty beeves in quarters, in a Tiffany 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 venti- lation 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 paper, com- menting 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 locali- ties where raised and will be sent to market in dressed form, saving transportation fees on offal and useless inatter." Even before this invention had reached a practical stage, the Democrat had advocated a packing-house for Fort Worth, an issue of May, 1875, when the cattle drive for that season was at high tide, containing the follow- ing: "Since our last issue the cattle trail has been the center of interest. Cattle drovers, cattle agents and cattle buyers have nearly taken our town. We are glad to notice so many buyers. Again we respectfully call the attention of stock- men generally and beef packers particularly to

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

the advantages of this point at which to establish slaughter pens and packing-houses for Texas beef. With the completion of railroads to this city we cannot conceive a more attractive place within the borders of the state for the packing business."

Of the 325,000 cattle that constituted the north- ward drive of 1876, about two hundred thousand went through Fort Worth, and a majority of them all were still driven to the railroads in Kan- sas. As was natural, considerable rivalry existed between the towns along the different trails, for a big cattle drive meant big trade at the supply points along the route. Fort Worth has always been jealous of this trade, and through her nat- ural advantages of situation and the enterprise of her citizens has been able to retain her prestige, first as the leading supply point along the trail, later as the great live-stock market. "Until a year ago," says a paper of 1879, sounding the note of alarm lest Fort Worth lose her position on the trail, "the main cattle trail from South and Central Texas through Fort Worth was the only one. But the Fort Griffin people have tapped the trail at Belton and have succeeded in drawing a large number of cattle through that city, by holding out advantages of better range along the way." That this was not a groundless fear on the part of the editor is shown by the statistics of the cattle drive for that year. Out of 250,000 head, about 115,000, or little less than half, went by way of Griffin. Perhaps the influence operat- ing most strongly to create this divergence and which threatened for a time to isolate Fort Worth from the cattle traffic, was the rapid settlement of the country west of that town. With the farmer also came fences-and that bane of the range stockman, the wire fence, was introduced about that time-and nothing created greater obstacles to the path of the trail herds than fences, actually resulting, in some parts of the state, in a settled hostility between the farmers and the cattle drovers. But while the settlement and develop- ment of the country thus threatened one feature of Fort Worth's prosperity, another great instru- ment of civilization was accomplishing the res- toration and increased pre-eminence of her posi- tion in the cattle trade. To supplant the primi-

tive cattle trails, steel highways were laid across the fenced fields out into the center of the ranges and as the stockmen became educated to the ad- vantages of this means of transportation the city became again, and perhaps for all time, the con- verging center for the modern cattle "trails."

Leaving for other pages the description of Fort Worth's growth as a cattle center, let us now consider the general progress of the range industry through its remaining years of impor- tance. Quoting again from "Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry": "In 1876 there were probably not 3,000 white people in the whole re- gion between the Eastland-Young-Archer-Wichi- ta tier of counties and the eastern line of New Mexico, with the Panhandle thrown in. These later 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, be- ing 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 Tex- as cattle ranges, generally speaking, 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 con- spicuous 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 Massachusetts and Dela- ware combined. Fenced ranges were unknown there, and the supply of free grass was practical- ly unlimited. Ranch supplies for most of the out-

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fits had to be hauled by wagons hundreds of miles, communications with the outside world were infrequent, mail was received at long in- tervals, and the greater part of the market stock was driven northward.

"However, the Texans had not thought .it worth while to try to do anything in the Staked Plains country, which in later years, with the co- operation of windmills for pumping water from wells, became, as it still remains, the feeding ground of many thousands of cattle. In those days there was no such thing as a windmill in use for supplying stock water on the range, and all districts without running streams within them or within practicable driving distance were dangerous land for live stock; but the Plain formed the only extensive district in Texas in which there was a lack of surface water in ordi- nary seasons."

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 sud- den wealth that actuated the participants, as also in the later failure and disappointment that swept into oblivion the majority of such fortune hunt- ers. The glamour of romance and the gleam of riches had been thrown over the cattle range. Its stern aspects, its hardships, its sacrificing 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 news- paper man, sounded impressive to the uninitiated and were often an all-sufficient stimulus to the ambition of an easterner plodding the slow road to prosperity. As one miraculous cure will estab- lish the world-wide fame of a relic which thou- sands of other worshipers have adored in vain, likewise a few examples of success in cattle ranching gave dazzling promise to all who would undertake its pursuit. The glowing reports of

the western cattle industry that found current in all parts of the world resulted in a large immigra- tion to the range country, and the mania for in- vestment in cattle and for booming every depart- ment of the business stimulated a false prosperity that could have but one end. Values rose beyond all precedent, and those who marketed their stock during the first two or three years of the "boom" realized profits that, had they then withdrawn from the business, would have left them well within the realms of wealth. But the contagion of the enterprise seemed to infect the experienced cattlemen as well as the tyro. The season's drive ended, the accruing profits were reinvested, and thus the bubble expanded till it burst.

To properly understand the culmination of the conditions which brought the range cattle indus- try to its climax in the eighties, it is necessary to go back to the origin of the industry and state the "rules of the game" which had obtained as unwritten law as long as free range lasted.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 25

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968