the cattle industry on the great plains

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ck here to find out about the development of the Cattle Indus

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The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains. Click here to find out about the development of the Cattle Industry. The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains. The Civil War. The US Army. The Railroads. The Plains Indians. Demand in the East. Goodnight & Loving. The Open Range. Cow Towns. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

Click here to find out about the development of the Cattle Industry

Page 2: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

The CivilThe CivilWarWar

The PlainsThe PlainsIndiansIndians

The OpenThe OpenRangeRange

CowCowTownsTowns

DemandDemandin the Eastin the East

The USThe USArmyArmy

TheTheRailroadsRailroads

GoodnightGoodnight& Loving& Loving

TheTheCowboysCowboys

Page 3: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

Between 1861 and 1866 the USA was

split by a Civil War between the

Northern States of the Union and the

Southern States of the Confederacy.

Texas was on the losing side. During

the war the Ranchers of Texas were

cut off from their markets in the North

and East. A small time rancher,

Charles Goodnight, was away from Texas and had no contact with his herd of cattle.

Yet in this time it increased from around 180 to 8 000 head. All over Texas the

impact of the Civil War was to lead to a massive increase in the number of cattle;

by 1866 there were an estimated 5 000 000 cattle in Texas. The economy of the

East went into boom and the demand for meat grew after the end of the war. Texan

Cattlemen looked for a way to meet this demand and make a profit.

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Page 4: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

The 1860s were a decade of Plains

wars between the Indians native to

the area and the incoming white

settlers backed by the US Army.

The army built camps and forts on

the Plains to maintain its control,

protect its soldiers and safeguard

the new migrants or homesteaders. These forts were given names such

as Fort Laramie and Fort Sumner. The soldiers in these forts needed

feeding with fresh meat, and contracts were available to those who could

supply the demands of the army The US Army also had the job of ensuring

the supply of food to the Indians on the reservations.

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Page 5: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

One big problem of moving the

cattle from Texas to the cities of

the East was transport. The

building of the Trans-Continental

Railroad by 1868 solved this

problem. It was now possible to

drive the cattle to a rail depot,

sell them to a dealer, who could then transport them in refrigerated wagons

to the growing cities of the East such as New York and Chicago. Vast

profits were now available for those with the cattle to sell. The railroad

arrived at Sedalia in 1865, and by 1870 it extended into Kansas. It was

here that the cow towns such as Abilene were built at railheads for the

transport of cattle to the East.

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Page 6: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

The 1860s were a period of

reservation life for many of the

tribes of the southern Plains. They

had been defeated by the US

Army and were now trapped on

reservations controlled by the

army and government agents.

The reservations were usually in the worst areas of land and the Indians

found it impossible to support themselves through farming. The agents

appointed by the government had the responsibility of ensuring that the

Indians were ‘looked after’ and fed. Contracts were available to those who

could supply the cattle needed. By 1870 the US Army was buying between

60 and 70 000 head of cattle a year to feed the Indians and its own soldiers.

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Page 7: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

The middle of the nineteenth

century saw an industrial

revolution in the northeast of

the USA. Vast cities were growing

and with this growth came millions

of new immigrants and workers

who needed to be fed. The end

of the Civil War in 1866 had sped up this process. The market was there,

and the Cattlemen of Texas, with their vast herds, were determined to

fulfil it. The railroads of the 1860s and 1870s offered the required transport

to bring the beef to the marketplace.

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Page 8: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

The cattle industry in Colorado owed

much to Charles Goodnight and Oliver

Loving, who were Texan ranchers. By

the end of the Civil War Goodnight had

a herd of about 8 000 cattle. With few

chances for selling beef in Texas, he

looked to the mining towns around

Denver in Colorado. In 1866 the two

men drove the herd towards Colorado. The Goodnight-Loving Trail swung west

into New Mexico. Here, by chance, they discovered another market. A Navajo Indian

reservation had been established at Bosque Rodeo near Fort Sumner. By 1866, the

Navajo were starving, and the government was keen to buy Goodnight’s beef.

Goodnight and Loving repeated their drive in 1867. Their success and profits of

1866 led to many other ranchers following them into the trail driving business and

the cattle trade of the 1860s was born.

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Page 9: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

As the profits available to

cattlemen continued to flow in the

1860s, a new breed of rancher

was born. This was the era of the

Open Range and the Cattle

Barons. The first of this new breed

was John Illif. He set up a ranch in

the new territory of Wyoming in 1867.

Illif won a contract to supply beef to the Union Pacific Railroad and its construction

crews. He bought $45 000 worth of steers from Charles Goodnight and sold them

for a huge profit. The profits of men such as Illif attracted many more to try their

hand at ranching on the Great Plains. Land for ranching was cheap; often it was

simply taken. Cattle ranching took place on the open range – acre after acre

of unfenced land. This was the heyday of the cowboy, but it did not last long.

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Page 10: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

In 1867, 35 000 cattle arrived at

Abilene. By 1871 600 000 steers

a year were moving up the

Chisholm Trail. The railroad

shipped them north from Abilene,

mainly to Chicago, which

established itself as a meat

packing centre. Joseph McCoy eventually went bankrupt, and other cattle

towns, such as Elsworth, Hays and Dodge City, began to compete for the

cattle business. However, McCoy’s initiative and enterprise had been

crucial to the growth of the cattle industry. The traffic on the Chisholm

Trail later shifted to the Western Trail. This took Texan cattle to Dodge

City, which became the main Kansas cattle centre from 1875.

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Page 11: The Cattle Industry on the Great Plains

Cattle could not drive themselves

northwards to the markets! They

needed the cowboys to guide

them. The 1860s to the 1880s

were the high point of the cowboy

era. Young men from many

different backgrounds, white, black

and Spanish became cowboys. Their

job was to escort the herds from Texas to the markets along the set Trails. It was a

very hard life, with low pay and cowboys were always short of sleep when on the

Long Drive. Cowboys continued to be important in the cattle industry during the

time of the Open Range on the Plains. They did the job of patrolling the edges of the

vast ranches, protecting the cattle and rounding them up when it was time for

the herd to go to market.

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