Chisholm Trail: $4 Longhorns, McCoy's Abilene and Margaret Borland's Drive

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1866 a Texas longhorn sold for about $4 at home and $40 in the North, but walking cattle there was the problem. In the 1850s Texas herds spread tick fever to Missouri cattle, and local farmers formed armed blockades, stole herds and, by 1859, passed laws banning Texas cattle. The route that solved it was never meant for cows: the scout Black Beaver laid out the path in 1861, and Jesse Chisholm, a trader of Cherokee and Scottish descent, widened it into a wagon road around 1864 between the Canadian River and the site of Wichita. In 1867 livestock trader Joseph G. McCoy built stockyards at Abilene, Kansas, on the Kansas Pacific Railway, and O.W. Wheeler brought the first big herd, 2,400 head, up the road.

Drives left South Texas in spring to follow the new grass, which meant swollen crossings on the Red and Arkansas rivers, where cowboys had to break up milling herds before cattle drowned each other. Longhorns could stampede at a thunderclap or a struck match, and tribes in Indian Territory charged tolls of about 10 cents a head. In 1873 Margaret Borland led her own drive of 2,500 longhorns from Texas to Wichita, the only woman known to do so, then died of trail fever soon after arriving. Railheads kept moving, from Abilene to Ellsworth, Newton, Wichita and Caldwell, until barbed wire, the Great Western Trail and new rail lines ended the trail's run.

• The trail moved an estimated five million cattle.
• Trail bosses sometimes forced a lead steer into a river to get the herd to follow.
• At least 27 Western films, including Howard Hawks's Red River with John Wayne, depict the first drive.
• U.S. Highway 81 in Oklahoma roughly follows the route, and Texas built the 26 mile Chisholm Trail Parkway.
• Wagon and hoof ruts are still visible at Monument Hill in Oklahoma.