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For several decades after the Civil War, much of Texas was still open range land.
Texas Longhorn cattle roamed freely, especially in their native habitat in the
southern part of Texas. With the arrival of railroads in the West, the cattle
and beef industry suddenly expanded tremendously.
The map below shows why the railroads reaching into the West created new opportunities
for beef cattle raising. In Texas, cattle were rounded up, then driven north on cattle trails
(green) such as the Chisholm Trail. The cattle drives up the trails ended at a cow town
such as Abilene in Kansas. These cities were on a railroad line built into Kansas that
connected to St. Louis, Missouri. From there, cattle could be shipped by
rail to Chicago or other cities for butchering.
Cattle belonging to a particular rancher could be identified with a brand
burned into the young animal's hide with a hot iron. Later, when it was time
to drive herds up to meet the railroad trains in Kansas, cowboys rounded up
and sorted out the full grown cattle. The photo below is from 1888.
Taking a herd of a thousand or more cattle up a trail was a long and difficult job
for the cowboys. Finding water for the herd was critical, and sometimes led to fights
with farmers who had fenced off their land with barbed wire. The journey up
the Chisholm trail was about two months, moving at about 15 miles a day.
The stereoscope card below from 1867 shows the railroad line built
into Abilene, Kansas. As the herds of cattle reached the end of the trail,
they were loaded onto the railroad cars and moved to cities like Chicago.
The photo to the right shows a stockyard (a fenced in area for cattle) outside a meat packing company in Chicago. "Meat packing" means killing the animals, cutting the meat into smaller parts, and then preparing the meat for sale to butcher shops and grocery stores. Armour became the most famous of the meatpacking businesses in Chicago, and helped make the city a center of that industry. The brand still exists today, as you can see by looking in the meat section of a grocery store. |
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The development of refrigerated railroad cars using ice in the 1870s allowed
beef and other meat products to be shipped from slaughterhouses in Chicago
to cities all over the country. This helped create a national market for beef
and other meat products.
A cut-away drawing of a refrigerated railroad car is shown below.
All photos are from the Library of Congress.
The railroad car drawing is from Wikipedia.
The map is by David Burns.
Some photos and images have been edited or resized for this page.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright 2009, 2011 by David Burns. All rights reserved. You may place a link to this page, or this site's home page. As a guide to the Virginia Standards of Learning, some pages necessarily include phrases or sentences from that document, which is available online from the Virginia Department of Education. The author's copyright extends to the original text and graphics, unique design and layout, and related material. |