Cowboy recalls era when cattle trail went up 37th

Longshoremen loaded more than 1,000 heifers on a Russian-bound ship earlier this month in an efficient operation nowhere near as spectacular as in Galveston’s wilder days. From the late 1800s through the roaring ’20s and decades following, cowboys drove herds of cattle down the seawall, steering them left at 37th Street and to the port. An occasional stray would wander in search of greener grass in area neighborhoods. “If you close your eyes, you can try to imagine the difficulty in trying to drive 300, 400 or 500 cattle up the boulevard all the way to 37th and then turning them and heading them to the docks,” said Gerald Sullivan, of Galveston. His father, the late John R. Sullivan, was among the drovers. “It has always fascinated me that you had cowboys that were really good enough to do that.” The elder Sullivan, an accomplished rodeoer as well, relished recalling the shipment of mules being herded to a waiting ship one day until the drovers caught sight of famous actress Alice Faye. “The cowboys paid more attention to her, and less attention to the mules and got the devil kicked out of them,” said John Sullivan, Gerald’s brother, recalling his father’s rendition of the tale. But it was the cattle drives the elder Sullivan described most often. “They would drive the cattle from the Lykes Brothers Ranch, up the beach to where the seawall began, then drive them up the seawall,” Gerald Sullivan said. Cattle would be driven into pens, and then loaded in various ways, depending on the ship’s configuration. Special portable pens might be used to hoist cattle aboard the ship, or ramps might be built alongside the ship and cattle herded through chutes, up the ramps and into pens in the hold of the ship. Slings were also used to hoist cattle aboard...more