Chisolm Trail

9 Pages 2263 Words

er the time the trail was used by drivers it did however become known as many names: the Abilene Trail, the Cattle Trail, the Great Cattle Trail, and the most obvious, and the most likely, McCoy’s Trail(“The Texans,” p.67).
The Chisholm Trail was long and tough, and so is discovering exactly what its origins are. Is the trail Chisholm or Chisum? There were actually three men in Texas during the great cattle boom. There was, of course, Jesse Chisholm, and there were two other men that may have bull dozed the way to cattle trade success. These men were Thorton Chisholm, a Texas trail driver that led a great drive all the way to Missouri, and John Chisum, a Texas cowboy that drove cattle to Shreveport during the civil war so the soldiers might have beef (“Other states were carved or born, Texas grew from hide and horn,”).
Rustlers and illness may have been an enormous problem on the trail, but it was the economic changes of the United States that eventually made the famous Chisholm Trail dwindle down. These changes were inevitable if the country wanted to keep progressing, but they put an end to the great trail drives of Texas. New rail lines were popping up all over America, and Texas was no different. These lines made it unnecessary for cattle to be driven that far to be put on trains. The trains would now come to the cattle. This increased all revenue by decreasing the need to hire as many trail hands to transport your herd. The days of cattle drive adventure were becoming extinct due to industrial revolution. Railroads were not the only reason the Texas drives ended. The barbed wire fence found its way to Texas in the 1870’s, and so did homestead laws that ...