Cattle Industry

Cattle were herded from Texas north by the ninety-ninth meridian to Ogallala, Nebraska, and through that gateway to the northern plains of Montana, Wyoming, and Dakota territories. The number of animals brought north during the two-decade long drive era following the Civil War reached at least 5 million; it is a wonder carnivores from the East could accommodate that much beef on their tables. Apparently demand was high, however: "huge demand needs huge supply," according to an 1884 report, and by then 2.5 million head had been shipped by rail from western cow towns to Chicago slaughterhouses for processing. Kansas City and others just east of the plains also became important meatpacking headquarters for cattlemen, who hired an estimated 35,000 cowboys, wranglers, and cooks to make the drive from 1867-1886.

Great fortunes fed great enterprises in the western plains, from Texas to the Canadian border. The cattle barons, as some frontier editors called the livestock financiers (sometimes a compliment, sometimes an epithet), came almost exclusively from the East and Europe to establish operations in western towns along the long drive trails. Many Dakota Territory cattle owners came from Britain or, in the flamboyant case of the Marquis de Morés in Dakota Territory, from France.

It would be inspiring to say the cattle barons, like cow town editors, came for the adventure and spirit of the great American frontier, but that would be largely wrong. They came for money. After the Civil War, Texas was broke but rich in semi-wild longhorns, while states east of the Mississippi had cash but expensive beef. When a Kansas Pacific railhead reached Abilene in 1867, Texas cattlemen realized they had a way to ship cattle east at a profit. In fact, the money could be enormous: at the beginning of the era, cattlemen could expect to receive a 100 percent profit in three years. This diminished to about 60 percent in four years, but this was still well worth the risk for many western entrepreneurs. The money spread through 1,500 miles of the established cattle towns throughout the plains. A general business rule estimated the cost of driving cattle that far at 60 cents a head, and 80 percent of that money was spent in the cow towns along the way. In fact, the cattle industry at its acme dominated economy and culture of plains states after the Civil War. . . .

^{Source: Collins, Ross. F. ''Newspapers in Dakota Territory.'' Cowboys and Cow Town. Vol. 3. No. 1. http://www.scripps.ohiou.edu/mediahistory/mhmjour3-1.htm. Downloaded August 15, 2006.}