2.2 The cattle industry

Question 1

Why did the railroads help the cattle industry grow?

Answer 1

Because it provided a way to move cattle worth $5 a head in Texas to the industrial cities of the North, which would pay $40 a head.

Question 2

What did the Quarantine laws (1855) do?

Answer 2

They blocked Texan cattle from Missouri and Kansas
which blocked the long drives to Sedalia and St Louis.

Texas cattle were kept out of quarantine zones: the settled areas of Missouri and Kansas

Question 3

After the civil war, how many cows were in Texas

Answer 3

5 million by 1865

Question 4

What was in high demand in northern towns and cites 1861-65

*what blocked this?

Answer 4

Beef, however drives to Sedalia were blocked because of Texas fever.

Question 5

Kansas had relaxed their quarantine rule in 1867. What did this mean.

Answer 5

it meant that Texan cattle were allowed to be driven through the state if they kept to the west of where farmers had settled.

Abilene was in that westward zone (Joseph McCoy).

Question 6

What happened as the railroad moved further west?

Answer 6

it created new rail-heads outside the quarantine zones.

Joseph McCoy

Question 7

How did Joseph McCoy build the first cow town?

Answer 7

• building stockyards and hotels in Abilene
• building a new railroad spur for loading the cattle onto railroad trucks
• extending the Chisholm Trail up to Abilene, agreeing passage through Indian Territory
• promoting the new route in Texas: McCoy spent $5000 on marketing

Question 8

When did Joseph McCoy build the first cow town

Answer 8

1867

Question 9

What did the first cow town result in?

Answer 9

35,000 cattle being driven to Abilene

Question 10

What did Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving realise?

Answer 10

That there was another market for Texan cattle : new settlements in the west

Question 11

when was the Goodnight-Loving trail established?

Answer 11

1866

Question 12

what was the first Goodnight-Loving trail, in 1866, to?

Answer 12

Fort Sumner where the government had failed to get enough supplies for Navajo Indian reservations.

Question 13

How much cattle did Goodnight and Loving sell when they went to Fort Sumner?

Answer 13

They sold 800 cattle for $12,000 : this was four times the price of cattle in Texas

Question 14

In 1868, where did the Goodnight-Loving trail extend up to?

Answer 14

Colorado (booming mining towns) and Wyoming, to the Union Pacific railroad

Question 15

What was the significance of the Goodnight-loving tail?

Answer 15

recognised new markets in the west

helped grow Wyoming cattle industry as other cattlemen started to drive cattle to Wyoming, so Wyoming’s cattle ranches began to grow

Question 16

What opportunites did John Illif see when there were gold prospecters in Colorado?

Answer 16

• saw opportunities to sell meat to booming mining towns in Colorado as there was a great demand of meat because of the gold rush in colorado in 1861
• saw that if he could to fatten his new herd up on the grass of the Plains he would be able to sell beef for a good price to the towns with none of the expense and difficulty of long drives

Question 17

Denver, Colorado was not on the railroad until 1870 - what did this mean?

Answer 17

this meant that it was difficult to get supplies there- either over the Rockies or across the Plains

Question 18

What had Iliff achieve by 1870

Answer 18

he had a herd of 26,000 cattle on the plains, on a ranch stretching over 16,000 aces

Question 19

How did Iliff become Denver’s first millionaire?

Answer 19

by selling his beef to miners, Indian reservations and railroad worker gangs

Question 20

what was the significance of John Iliff and Plains ranching?

Answer 20

The start of ranching on the open range of the great plains

Question 21

why was the increase in texan cattle bad?

Answer 21

because it caused the price of beef in the south had dropped dramatically and there was a low demand for cows

Question 22

What was the three key advantages for Abilene as a new transit point for cattle drives?

Answer 22

• Abilene was in the westward zone (Kansas had relaxed its quarantine rules in 1867, allowing Texan cattle to be driven through the state as long as it was west from where farmers had settled)
• There was grassland all the way from Kansas, through Indian territory to Texas, and the chisolm trail went through this which meant that cowboys could use it to bring the herds north
• Cattle could be loaded onto railroad trucks at the railhead at Abilene and shipped from there to Chicago

Question 23

In 1861, how much did John Illif buy a herd of cattle for and why was it that price?

Answer 23

$500

a cheap price because the herd was exhausted after a long drive across the Plains and was too thin to sell for beef

Question 24

What was the best way to make lots of money in the cattle industry and what was the result of this?

Answer 24

to have very large ranches and enormous herd of cattle

As a result only a few men, backed by rich investors dominated the cattle industry - cattle barons

Question 25

what were cattle barons able to do?

Answer 25

• control local politics as well as almost all the land in new territories like wyoming and colorado