Why did Texas ranchers want to take their cattle to cities in the Northeast?
Main Ideas 1. The growing market for beef was profitable for many Texas ranchers. Demand for beef outpaced supply in the Northeast. The region hida large population, and its cattle supply had been greatly reduced by the Civil War.
What were the ranchers driving their cattle towards?
After gold was discovered in the Rocky Mountains, some cattle were driven to the gold fields there, starting about 1858. Some ranchers held contracts to supply beef to frontier forts and to Indian reservations in West Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico beginning in the late 1850s.
Where did cattle come from on the railroads?
Railroads brought cattle from Texas to Chicago for slaughter, where they were then processed into packaged meats and shipped by refrigerated rail to New York City and other eastern cities.
Why did Joseph McCoy want to bring cattle to Chicago?
Joseph McCoy was a livestock trader in Chicago. He wanted to bring the longhorn cattle from Texas to Chicago and from there distribute them to the East. Making himself a lot of money in the process. Homesteaders who had established themselves in Kansas objected to the cattle crossing their land because they carried a tick that killed other animals.
What did Cowboys do to sell their cattle?
In order to sell their cattle, Texan cowboys had to transport their cattle to the markets in the eastern states. Herding cattle over long distances was known as the ‘long drive’, and the route they took was known as a ‘cattle trail’. One issue on the long drive was disease.
Why are cattle drives important to the American West?
Due to the extensive treatment of cattle drives in fiction and film, the horse has become the worldwide iconic image of the American West, where cattle drives still occur. Cattle drives represented a compromise between the desire to get cattle to market as quickly as possible and the need to maintain the animals at a marketable weight.
Railroads brought cattle from Texas to Chicago for slaughter, where they were then processed into packaged meats and shipped by refrigerated rail to New York City and other eastern cities.
How did cattle farmers get to the beef market?
Midwestern cities such as Chicago and Kansas City, however, had access to the railroad infrastructure, and therefore they could connect the cattle farmers to the beef market. The farmers would stage cattle drives to transport the cattle to these Midwestern cities, where they would be kept in stockyards and finished in feedlots.
Joseph McCoy was a livestock trader in Chicago. He wanted to bring the longhorn cattle from Texas to Chicago and from there distribute them to the East. Making himself a lot of money in the process. Homesteaders who had established themselves in Kansas objected to the cattle crossing their land because they carried a tick that killed other animals.
Why did cattlemen refuse to travel through Kansas?
Cattlemen driving cattle through Kansas met fierce opposition and were reluctant to make the journey. McCoy knew that the railroad companies were keen to carry more freight. The Kansas/Pacific railway ran past a frontier village.