Analyzing Primary Sources:

1. 510-512 - Analyze Primary Source Documents. - Describe the cattle interests in the American Westduring the nineteenthcentury.

2. Analyzing Primary Sources: • - Read each diary/journal and make a list of the difficulties, problems and concerns of each: • James Bell: His journal as the boss of a Texas cattle in the 1870s. • Anonymous diary: A wagon train heading west to California, Oregon or Utah in the 1850s.

3. Directions: Create a venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two documents: James Bell’s Journal of cattle drive Anonymous Diary of wagon train

4. The Western Cattle Industry • Cattle industry originated in southern Texas by Mexican ranchers who worked with “Texas Longhorn” cattle in early 1800s. • Demand for beef increased due to urban-ization and industrialization. • In 1867, Joseph McCoy opened a shipping yard in Abilene, Kansas at the westernmost railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. • Texas ranchers then opened the Chisholm Trail driving their cattle herds northward to Abilene to market. • By 1870 over 1.5 million cattle had been shipped through Abilene. • This was referred to as the “long drive”.

5. The Western Cattle Industry • As railroads expanded further westward more cowtowns grew including Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City in Kansas Cheyenne, Wyoming. • Characteristics of a “cowtown”: • Exaggeratedreputation of violence having gun control laws and local police forces. • Used “sin taxes” to pay for town expenses while eliminating business taxes. • By 1890, the west had become the most urban region in the U.S. with two thirds of its population living in towns of at least 2,500 people.

6. The Western Cattle Industry • End of the open-range cattle industry: • Before the 1880s, ranchers grazed their cattle freely on public land which allowed them to minimize their costs to ranch. • When high profits and increased demand for beef attracted large corporations, lands were fenced in to control cattle with fewer cowhands. • Corporate ranches overgrazed much of the ranch lands. • Droughts and blizzards struck in 1886-1887 killing off herds and most small, independent ranches collapsed unable to afford to rebuild their herds.

7. The Western Cattle Industry • Typical Cowboy: • Poorly paid, seasonal work, could be boring and dangerous and was racially diverse: • Many cowboys were white southerners unable or unwilling to return home after the Civil War. • About 25% were black cowhands. • Mexican cowhands developed most of the tools and techniques involved in ranching. • Myth – Reputation of violence?

8. The Western Cattle Industry • How did corporate control of ranching change the life of cowhands? • Cowhands traditional rights disappeared: • Prohibited them from running brands of their own on the side • Forbade cowhands from drinking, gambling and carrying firearms. • Response: • Organized strikes! • 1883 Panhandle Stock Association in Texas. • 1886 Northern New Mexico Cowboys Union

9. The Western Cattle Industry • Response: • Organized strikes! • 1883 Panhandle Stock Association in Texas. • However, these strikes and unions failed in the long term.

10. Prospectors Western Mining Camp Main Street, Boxelder, ID Old West Justice Cattle Drive Camp Hydraulic Mining The Gillespie Hotel in Hot Springs, Dakota Territory

11. Employees of the Prairie Cattle Company at the ranch headquarters in Dry Cimarron, New Mexico, in 1888