Cattle Boom and Bust
Texas Longhorn
Cattle Boom: The cattle boom started when the Spanish brought their cattle to California and Texas. The cattle soon mixed with the English breed and created the Texas longhorn. The breed spread quickly.
The longhorns could survive harsh winters and needed little water to survive. They were known as the "8 pound hamburger and the 800 pounds of bone". Still, settlers wanted to raise longhorns. Ranchers started to raise cattle on the open range that was once occupied by the Native Americans.
During the Civil War, the demand for beef increased, but nobody wanted to take the cattle all the way to New York. So the railroads were used to take the meat, but the Cowboys would still have to take the cattle to the railroads on a long journey called cattle drives.
Cattle Bust: The cattle bust was when the cattle boom ended. The cattle boom ended because ranchers started stealing land and longhorns. This led to range wars. Also, the longhorns had eaten all of the grass in the prairie that the ranchers depended on for feed. Then harsh winters came and all ranchers and farmers had to reduce their herds. Low prices, harsh weather, and competition for feed led to an end of the Cattle Kingdom.
The longhorns could survive harsh winters and needed little water to survive. They were known as the "8 pound hamburger and the 800 pounds of bone". Still, settlers wanted to raise longhorns. Ranchers started to raise cattle on the open range that was once occupied by the Native Americans.
During the Civil War, the demand for beef increased, but nobody wanted to take the cattle all the way to New York. So the railroads were used to take the meat, but the Cowboys would still have to take the cattle to the railroads on a long journey called cattle drives.
Cattle Bust: The cattle bust was when the cattle boom ended. The cattle boom ended because ranchers started stealing land and longhorns. This led to range wars. Also, the longhorns had eaten all of the grass in the prairie that the ranchers depended on for feed. Then harsh winters came and all ranchers and farmers had to reduce their herds. Low prices, harsh weather, and competition for feed led to an end of the Cattle Kingdom.
Cattle Ranchers & Cowboys
Joseph McCoy
People during the Cattle Kingdom became wealthy by raising and selling longhorns. Joseph McCoy had an idea to establish a market so southern ranchers could sell their cattle. Elizabeth Collins and her husband had trouble mining gold so they started ranching longhorns in Montana and she was called the Cattle Queen of Montana. The Collins are one of many ranches that became rich. Vaqueros were ranch hands who cared for the longhorns. Nat Love was an African American who wrote an autobiography about being a cowboy.
Life on the range
The ranching lifestyle was sometimes peaceful, dangerous, and cruel. The ranchers raised their herds using the prairie grass to feed the longhorns. The cowboys worked hard. They had to round up the cattle and take them on a cattle drive to the railroads. At night one of the cowboys had to stay up because other cowboys might steal the longhorns. Later, ranchers marked their farming area and would steal other cattle. On top of all of that there was harsh winters, tornadoes, and blizzards.
Trouble on the range
At first there was an open range for ranching and settlers. Settlers continued to come west and land was becoming scarce. People had to reduce their land and had to reduce the size of their herds. So people started stealing other ranchers' longhorns and land.
Effects of Railroads
Cattle Movement: The cattle drives took the cattle to the railroads. The railroads took the cattle to east. When refrigerator railroad cars were invented in the 1880's, the meat could be shipped from packing plants to cities in The East. The Cattle Boom would not have happened without the railroads, because the railroads helped the demand for cattle to grow.