El Rancho in South Texas: Continuity and Change From 1750 Page: 41
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American ranchers chose the latter method of selling
their cattle.
Richard King, one of the earliest and most successful
marketers of cattle in the region, shipped some 70,000
cattle between 1869 and I885. His method was to have
the trail drivers invest in and become part owners of
the cattle. As they traveled toward the railheads, the
trail boss would stay in contact with King via tele-
graph, so that King was often the person who made
the final sale. In 1875, he made a net profit of $50,000
on a single herd of 4,737 cattle (Lea 1957).
Cattle drives originating in South Texas moved up
either the Western Trail (to railheads in Dodge City,
Kansas, and beyond), or up the Eastern or Chisholm
Trail to Abilene, Kansas. From the Western Trail, cattle
herds could connect with the Potter & Bacon Trail
into Colorado; the Jim Stinson Trail into New Mexico,
Arizona, and California; or the Goodnight/Loving
Trail through Colorado into Wyoming. Herds of cattle
numbering from one thousand to four thousand head
were gathered in late February or March, when the
grass in South Texas started to grow. They would fol-
low the growth of new spring grass and arrive at their
northern destinations in late summer (Darv 1981).
A "road herd" of three thousand cattle required a
herd or trail boss, around ten cowboys, a cook (who
was also in charge of the team and the wagon carry-
ing supplies and bedrolls), and a wrangler (who tended
the remuda, or string of extra horses-about six for
each cowboy). About a third of the trail drivers were
Mexican-American vaqueros or black cowboys. The trail
boss would normally ride ahead of the herd, followed
by the chuck wagon, which was pulled by mules or
oxen. To one side of the cattle, the horse wrangler
herded the remuda. Point riders had the job of guiding
the lead steers. Swing riders kept the herd together,
as did the flank riders a little farther back. Behind
the herd, making sure that no cattle dropped out,
rode the drag riders, most often the youngest cow-
boys with the least experience. They "ate dust" in dry
weather, but kept the cattle moving. By mid-afternoon
the cook, accompanied by the horse wrangler and his
remrnuda, would drive the chuck wagon ahead to thenight's campsite, identified by the trail boss. Although
they lasted less than two decades, these trail drives and
the cowboys who participated in them captured the
imagination of the nation, spread the ranching culture
throughout the greater Southwest, and initiated the
cowboy as perhaps America's most important mythic
folk hero, despite the reality of his harsh, poorly paid,
insecure job (Dary 1981).
A number of important factors led to the decline of
the trail drive era. Most important was the three-year
drought which began in 1881, causing water sources to
dry up and decreasing the amount of grass normally
available. This made it much more difficult to drive
cattle over such great distances. The cattle market in
South Texas was also affected by growing competition
from ranchers in other parts of the West and South-
west. Texas Fever, a fatal cattle disease transmitted
through ticks, was another factor leading to the decline
of the trail drive. Northern ranchers, afraid the disease
would be spread to their cattle, organized "Winchester
Quarantines," armed bands of men who gathered on
the trails to keep Texas cattle out. This problem would
not be solved until just before the turn of the century.
Another important factor was the decline, by the mid-
i88os, in the open range. In many areas, barbed-wire
fences were built across the cattle trails and guarded
by the farmers and ranchers who had settled there
(Dary 1981).
A final nail in the coffin of the trail drive was the
coming of the railroad. In 1881, the Texas Mexican
Railway connected Laredo and other smaller commu-
nities to Corpus Christi, which already had rail con-
tact with San Antonio and the rest of the nation
(Lea 1957). Shortly afterward, ranchers from through-
out the region began to ship their cattle by rail to
northern markets. Until well into the next century,
however, shorter cattle drives were still necessary to
transfer cattle from the many ranches in the region
to the shipping points along the railroad. The Arm-
strong Ranch, for instance, conducted seventy-five-mile
cattle drives for many years to get cattle to its ship-
ping point (Smith 1986). Although most ranches were
soon enclosed with barbed wire fences, ranchers co-The Ranch in South Texas
41
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Graham, Joe S. El Rancho in South Texas: Continuity and Change From 1750, book, 1994; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28328/m1/53/?q=el%20rancho: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.