What was the importance of cattle trails and railroads?

What was the importance of cattle trails and railroads?

As railroads expanded westward across the United States, markets for beef opened. Texas cattle owners drove their herds along cattle trails to the railroads. Cattle drives made up an important part of the cattle industry. Cowhands led the herds over miles of terrain to railroads where they could be shipped east.

What effect did railroads have on cattle towns?

On reaching Abilene and other cow towns, cattle were sent East by train to feed growing cities. By 1890 new railroads had helped cattle ranching spread to most parts of the West. Long cattle drives were replaced by shorter drives on local trails.

How were railroads significant for the cattle industry?

Railroads created the market for ranching, and because for the few years after the war that railroads connected eastern markets with important market hubs such as Chicago, but had yet to reach Texas ranchlands, ranchers began driving cattle north, out of the Lone Star state, to major railroad terminuses in Kansas.

What were cow towns used for?

A typical cattle town lay at the junction of railroad and livestock trail. It provided facilities for the reception of herds driven up from the south, their sale, and their transportation to urban meatpackers, to midwestern cattle feeders, or to the ranchers of the Central and Northern Plains.

Why were cattle trails so important?

Ranchers used specific routes, known as cattle trails, to move their animals from grazing lands to market. The most famous trails of the Great Plains ran from Texas northward to Kansas cowtowns or railheads. “All over the land are vast and handsome pastures, with good grass for cattle . . .”

What was the impact of railroads?

Eventually, railways lowered the cost of transporting many kinds of goods across great distances. These advances in transport helped drive settlement in the western regions of North America. They were also essential to the nation’s industrialization. The resulting growth in productivity was astonishing.

How did the railroad impact the economy of the cattle industry?

The railroad allowed the cattle industry to boom. After the Civil War, beef was in high demand in the east. Cattle drives required bringing the cattle…

Why was the cattle industry important?

The cattle industry in the United States in the nineteenth century due to the young nation’s abundant land, wide-open spaces, and rapid development of railroad lines to transport the beef from western ranches to population centers in the Midwest and the East Coast.

How did the growth of railroads impact society?

Railroads created a more interconnected society. Counties were able to more easily work together due to the decreased travel time. With the use of the steam engine, people were able to travel to distant locations much more quickly than if they were using only horse-powered transportation.

What was the cow town and railroad that the Western Trail went to?

Most of the cattle along the trail were shipped out of Dodge City, Kansas along the railroad. However, as cattlemen learned of the great open ranges to the north, many began trailing their herds further into Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and even as far north as Canada.

Why was Abilene important to the cattle industry?

Abilene was the ideal location for several reasons. Firstly, there was plenty of grassland and water for the herds. Secondly, Kansas’ quarantine law allowed Texas herds to settle there as long as they were far enough away from the homesteaders to prevent disease spreading.

What was the purpose of the cattle towns?

Cattle towns were midwestern frontier settlements that catered to the cattle industry. The economies of these communities were heavily dependent on the seasonal cattle drives from Texas, which brought the cowboys and the cattle that these towns relied upon. Cattle towns were found at the junctions of railroads and livestock trails.

When did the cow towns start and end?

COW TOWNS. A by-product of the dramatic growth of the cattle business in the latter part of the nineteenth century, cow towns flourished from 1867 until the 1890s when railroads ended the necessity for long cattle drives.

Why did cattle towns start in Kansas and Nebraska?

As many Texan cattle drivers became dissatisfied with the Kansas Pacific Railroad, they began to look to the lower prices of the Union Pacific. Additionally the influx of settlers, farmers and ranchers onto what used to be the cattle trails in Kansas and Nebraska forced old towns to be abandoned and new ones to be founded.

When did Dodge City become a cattle town?

In 1875 the three of them Ellsworth, Newton and Wichita lost access to the cattle trails because of expansive rural settlement around the towns. Dodge City became the major cattle town in 1876, and Caldwell joined it in 1880, but both towns were closed to the cattle trade in 1885 when Kansas outlawed the importation of Texan cattle.