Cattle Drives in The United States - Texas Roots

Texas Roots

Texans established trail driving as a regular occupation. In 1836, when Texas was still part of Mexico, there was a "Beef Trail" to New Orleans. In the 1840s the Tejanos extended their markets northward into Missouri. The towns of Sedalia, Baxter Springs, Springfield, and St. Louis became principal markets. During the 1850s, emigration and freighting from the Missouri River westward caused a rise in demand for oxen. In 1858, the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell utilized about 40,000 oxen. Longhorns were trained by the thousands for work oxen. Herds of longhorns were driven to Chicago, and at least one herd was driven all the way to New York.

The gold boom in California in the 1850s created a demand for beef and provided people with the cash to pay for it. Thus, though most cattle were obtained locally or from Mexico, very long drives were attempted. Australians began cattle drives to ports for shipment of beef to San Francisco and, after freezing methods were developed, all the way to Britain. In 1853 the Italian aristocrat Leonetto Cipriani undertook a drive from St. Louis to San Francisco along the California Trail; he returned to Europe in 1855 with large profits.

During the American Civil War before the Union seized the Mississippi River in 1863, Texans drove cattle into the Confederacy for the use of the Confederate Army. In October, 1862 a Union naval patrol on the southern Mississippi River captured 1,500 head of Longhorns which had been destined for Confederate military posts in Louisiana. The permanent loss of the main cattle supply after 1863 was a serious blow to the Confederate Army.

However, in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, Philip Danforth Armour opened a meat packing plant in Chicago known as Armour and Company, and with the expansion of the meat packing industry, the demand for beef increased significantly. By 1866, cattle could be sold to northern markets for as much as $40 per head, making it potentially profitable for cattle, particularly from Texas, to be herded long distances to market.