In the next four years, more than one-and-a-half-million cattle were moved north over the Chisholm trail to Kansas. Other trails were found as the railroad moved farther west.
LEO SCULLY: Trail drives usually began with the spring "round-up."Cattlemen would send out cowboys to search the open grasslands for their animals.
As the cattle were brought in, the young animals were branded -- marked to show who owned them. Then they were released with their mothers to spend another year in the open country.
The other cattle were put together for the long drive to Kansas. Usually, they were moved in groups of twenty-five hundred to five thousand animals. Twelve to twenty cowboys took them up the trail.
ROBERT BOSTIC: The cowboys worked hard on a trail drive. They had to keep the herd together day and night and protect it from bad men and Indians. They had to keep the cattle from moving too fast or running away. If they moved too fast, they would lose weight, and their owner would not get as much money for them.
The cowboys would walk the cattle only twenty to thirty kilometers a day. The cattle could feed all night and part of the morning before starting each day. If the grass was good, and the herd moved slowly, the cattle would get heavier and bring more money.
LEO SCULLY: In the early eighteen eighties, the price of cattle rose to fifty dollars each, and many cattlemen became rich. Business was so good that a five thousand dollar investment in the cattle industry could make forty-five thousand dollars in four years.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25