Texas Stories - The Chisholm Trail

The Chisholm Trail Vintage postcard of a Texas Longhorn This is Timothy Patrick Miller with Another Texas Story . . . Although life was hard for the cowboys who rode the Longhorn Trails, an estimated 35,000 men responded to the call of the open range. From the mid 1860s through the 1880s, they herded more than six million cattle out of Texas along a network of wagon roads and trails - none more traveled than the legendary Chisholm Trail, named for Indian trader Jesse Chisholm. It stretched all the way from South Texas to Abilene, Kansas, where a rail line and stock cars waited to transport beef to hungry markets in the East and West. So...north they went, traveling 10 to 12 miles a day – a dozen men herding thousands of cattle on a journey that might last three to four months. Years later, historian J. Frank Dobie would write that it was "the most fantastic and fabulous migration of animals controlled by man that the world has ever known." Barbed wire fences and quarantines may have brought an end to the era in 1885, but not the stories and songs of cowboys, cattle and life on the Chisholm Trail. Today's program is made possible in part by a grant from Humanities Texas - a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. For Texas Stories, I'm Timothy Patrick Miller. ©2006, KJ Productions and Texas Stories


Program Guide for Today's Show sources Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "CHISHOLM TRAIL," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/ayc2.html Flanagan, Sue., "Trailing the Longhorns, A Century Later." Madrona Press, 1974. "The Chisholm Trail, Exploring the Folklore and Legacy". Heritage Trails Program brochure. Texas Historical Commission, 2002. images Vintage postcard, circa 1940s. Private collection. music Royalty Free Music Library: AirCraft, "Dusty Road" Related topics, resources and points of interests Online Handbook of Texas More key word links... Cattle Trailing, Cattle Brands, Texas fever, Shawnee Trail, Black Cowboys, Lizzie Johnson Williams museums, historic sites and parks Longhorns at Texas State Parks Chisholm Trail Heritage Center, Cuero, Texas Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Oklahoma The round rock in Round Rock, Texas, was a marker along the Chisholm Trail. Fort Worth, also known as Cowtown, was a major stop for cowboys in route to Kansas. more online resources Chisholm Trail, Texas Historical Commission. Download brochure Trail Drivers of Texas This digitized book tells the real-life tales of the cowboys who blazed trails while moving cattle and horses from Texas northward between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century. Made available by UT Press. Map of the Chisholm Trail north of Texas. Chisholm Trail, Wikipedia Chisholm Trail History Cattle Trade of the South and Southwest, by Joseph McCoy Classroom resources classroom resources A classroom activity is being developed for this program. KIDS! Color a Longhorn