The great Chisholm Trail turns 150

After the Civil War, a variety of cattle trails evolved as ranchers had their vaqueros take the hardy Longhorn cattle 1,000 miles north to faraway places like Kansas, Wyoming and Missouri. In the decades following the Civil War, more than 6 million — some accounts say 10 million — cows and bulls were led out of Texas to northern cattle markets. There were many cattle trails. All started in Texas and all had cattle from South Texas where tens of thousands of head of cattle roamed the Wild Horse Desert as freely as a horned toad on a hot summer night. The trails started in the lower Rio Grande Valley and the Brush Country of modern-day Jim Hogg and Webb counties and meandered up what is now U.S. Highway 281, Interstate 35 and U.S. 77 toward San Antonio and points north. The King Ranch Kineños and the Kenedy Ranch Kenedeños vaqueros were also involved in the massive migration of Texas beeves that would feed a nation. Some of those original drives from what is now the Kenedy and Kleberg counties area meandered up what is now 6th Street in Kingsville. There is a citizen’s agenda to add the name Kineños Trail to the street in commemoration of those drives that brought economic vitality and fame to the area. Among the cattle trails used by South Texas ranchers — small and big — were the Great Western Trail, the Matamoros Trail, the Shawnee Trail, and the Sedalia Trail. But it was the Chisholm Trail that was the major route out of Texas for livestock. This year, the Chisholm Trail celebrates its 150th anniversary and its impact on South Texas, the state and nation must be recognized.The Chisholm Trail started with simple banking negotiations by Joseph G. McCoy of Illinois. In the spring of 1867 he persuaded Kansas Pacific Railroad officials to lay a line in Abilene, Kansas. He began building pens and loading facilities and sent word to Texas ranchers that a cattle market was available. That year he shipped 35,000 head; the number doubled each year until 1871, when 600,000 head glutted the market. The first herd to follow the future Chisholm Trail to Abilene belonged to O.W. Wheeler and his partners, who in 1867 bought 2,400 steers in San Antonio. The cattle came from the San Antonio River ranchos and the Goliad-Victoria area...more