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The CHISHOLM TRAIL at 150 TEXAS’ EPIC, SELF-DEFINING ROAD TRIP ver wanted to throw a birthday party for cowboys? This is your year. But be sure to have a cake big enough for 150 candles. That’s because this is the 150th Eanniversary, more or less, of the Chisholm Trail. I qualify that because a lot remains uncertain about this iconic trail that bridged Texas pastures with Kansas railroads. Few agree on where it started or stopped, for instance, or where the name came from, or even if the trail was in Texas at all (see the “The Never-Ending Chisholm Debate” on Page 49). But still, this huge Texas exodus of cattle in the 1860s and 1870s changed the Lone Star State for good. And gave birth to the cowboy icon to boot. It’s a birthday that makes for a particularly rewarding Texas road trip, too. By ROBERT REID Photo: © Kenny Braun 42 texashighways.com JULY 2017 43 The TRAIL’S ROOTS FTER THE CIVIL WAR, Texas was a here, Eastern markets reached via railroads A rough place. The economy was busted, paid 10 times that amount. droughts loomed, the railroads hadn’t yet But how to get ’em there? Enter the cowboy. connected the whole state, and returning Trail riders faced brutal conditions on the Confederate soldiers couldn’t find work. But two- to three-month drive: forging rivers, there was no shortage of one thing: Long- searching for drinking water, reckoning horns, which outnumbered Texans six to with thunderclaps that sent cattle into stam- one. “There seemed no end to these scattered pedes, and paying tolls (or worse) from wait- brutes,” wrote Wayne Gard in The Chisholm ing Kiowa or Osage in Indian Territory. Trail in 1954. While a Longhorn yielded $4 Finding the best way north also proved difficult. Before the war, a hand- ful of ranchers had led herds to New Orleans and even St. Louis on foot. But once tick-carrying Longhorns introduced less hardy Missouri cattle to “Texas fever” (sometimes called “Mexican fe- ver” in Texas), gangs of Missou- rians met drovers in firefights, killing cattle (and a fair share of cowhands). The new migration target shifted west—to slightly more welcoming Kansas. In the spring of 1867, Joseph McCoy, an Illinois entrepreneur, set up a train depot in Abilene, Kansas. And the industry boomed, as doc- umented in many Western films like Red River from 1948. Over the next 15 to 20 years, drovers led millions of Long- horns to Kansas, which built up baron empires in Texas and fu- eled the adventurous spirit of younger cowhands getting paid a mere $30 to $50 a month. WHERE to GO FOLLOWING THE CHISHOLM TRAIL TODAY not only changes how you see Texas’ past, but also its present. Its legacy is found in high-heel cowboy boots, our love for all things beef, ex-cowtowns that rose from the dusty paths, and the barbed wire that ultimately closed off most of the open range for good. Driving the Chisholm Trail is more than just a ride up Interstate-35. The Chisholm Trail 150 website, chisholmtrail150.org, also lists many options and events this year (including some in Oklahoma and Kansas). Meanwhile, here are the five biggest stop-offs—ordered south to north—that can be experienced any time: Photo by Kevin Stillman 44 texashighways.com Photo: © Kenny Braun JULY 2017 45 “There was nothing romantic about trail- MEET A CATTLE BARON ing herds,” Kinnan cautions. “Movies made To read more Kingsville it romantic.” about Robert Reid’s ichard King, the man behind the You can learn how the road to any great travels along the R 825,000-acre King Ranch near Kings- steakhouse begins at a ranch like this. Tours historic Chisholm ville, deserves his own Hollywood film. explore the property, while museum exhibits Trail, pick up the “He was an amazingly tenacious individ- touch on King and the Chisholm Trail. Visi- July 2017 issue of ual,” says Bob Kinnan, the area manager of tors can also meet some Longhorns along with a Oklahoma Today the Santa Gertrudis Heritage Society. “How special breed developed here on the ranch in the magazine. he survived so long and established a ranch early decades of the 1900s: the Santa Gertrudis, Call 800-777-1793; this size is a remarkable thing. South Texas the first beef breed formed in the United States. oklahomatoday.com. was a desperate part of the world at the time.” Afterward, drive two hours north on “blue Born in 1825 in New York, King escaped an highway backroads” to Goliad State Park unlikely childhood as an indentured servant. and Historic Site to visit Texas’ first mega- As a stowaway, he convinced the ship cap- ranch at the Mission Espíritu Santo. Opened tain to teach him how to captain boats, then in 1749, the mission—run by Native Amer- went on to pilot boats for the U.S. Army in the icans mostly—had 40,000 head of cattle by Fort Worth Stock- Seminole and Mexican wars before lighting the time of American independence. yards cattle drovers out south of the border to bring back cheap David Mangold cattle from Mexico to build his own ranch, (opening spread), founded in 1853. (While there, he hired ap- RELIVE THE José Hernandez proximately a hundred Mexican vaqueros, CHISHOLM TRAIL (previous spread), called Los Kineños, to teach him the ropes of Cuero and Rob Little (left). ranching.) The result is Texas’ largest ranch, o museum in Texas better explains ABOVE: King Ranch now bigger than Rhode Island. N the reality of riding the Chisholm in Kingsville and the Mission Espíritu Santo in Goliad This huge Texas exodus of cattle in the 1860s and 1870s (far right). changed the Lone Star State for good. Photo by Kevin Stillman 46 texashighways.com Photos: © Kenny Braun (left), Will van Overbeek (King Ranch), © Joel Salcido (Mission Espíritu Santo) JULY 2017 47 Trail than Cuero’s Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum. The award-winning museum, open since 2013, is set up near drovers’ set- off points that actually pre-date the trail it- The NEVER-ENDING self. The site acknowledges the Chisholm CHISHOLM DEBATE Trail’s murky origins with displays on Gua- dalupe Valley ranching roots that harken HISHOLM TRAIL BUFFS frequently clash over the back to Spanish times. Other features in- trail’s history, beginning with a basic question of whether Cit ever really was in Texas. The hubbub peaked in 2001, when clude a chuckwagon replica and a fun Lead a Trail Drive interactive exhibit where visi- reaction to a Texas Historical Commission brochure attracted tors pick cowboys for all of the drive’s key po- the attention of a New York Times reporter. In an article, Fort sitions, including the lowly wranglers in the Worth historian Doug Harman, citing a half-dozen sources, dusty back. said “The Texas men who went on the cattle drives all called it the Chisholm Trail,” while Pat Halpin, president of the Old Trail Drivers Association of Texas at the time, claimed “it never en- WALK THE HISTORIC tered Texas at all.” COW TOLL BRIDGE Whatever it’s called in Texas, it is certain that the Chisholm Waco Trail was the main means for Texan cowboys leading cattle to uddy, unruly red waters of the steeply Kansan train depots in the late 1860s and 1870s. And it’s sure that Mbanked Brazos River—named by the there was no single trail to take—particularly in Texas. Spanish for brazos de dios (or arms of God)—made “Trails originated wherever a herd was shaped up and ended for one of the biggest obstacles during drives wherever a market was found,” TC Richardson wrote in Cattle to the Red River. Then Waco changed things. Trails of Texas in 1937. That means Texas’ contribution to the In 1870, the Waco Suspension Bridge opened, “Chisholm Trail” looked more like tree roots than a lone trunk. making crossing a breeze—well, for a price. “We are trying to side step, but not ignore, any of the academic Today the river’s changed. In Waco, you controversies and use the anniversary to celebrate the impact can kayak or canoe the Brazos, or read up on of the cattle trails, using Chisholm as the vehicle,” says Brad- its last wild days in John Graves’ iconic Good- ford Patterson, community heritage development director at the bye to a River, which describes his experience Texas Historical Commission. “The Chisholm arguably has had of making a Thoreau-like canoe journey “be- the most influence of any single trail, and it is the most recogniz- fore they drown it” by dams. able to the public due to influence of popular culture.” Of course you must walk the bridge. It’s a Debate also hovers over the question of who “Chisholm” was. Waco favorite activity, now punctuated by a The trail is generally believed to be named for Jesse Chisholm, riverside series of sculptures of drovers and a helpful trailblazer living in Indian Territory, a Scottish/Cher- Longhorns—created by Cleburne artist Rob- okee Tennessean who died before knowing his name would go ert Summers in 2014—that spill toward it down in history. (A Lenape trapper named Black Beaver intro- from a riverside park. duced the trail to him.) Others claim a drover from Cuero named In fall, Baylor University’s Mayborn Thornton should get the credit, while some figure it was New Museum hosts a lecture series that includes Mexico rancher John Chisum. trail lore. And who led all these Longhorns? A mix of (mostly) men took off with cattle herds— CLOCKWISE Confederate vets, yes, but also Mexican va- CATCH A CATTLE DRIVE FROM TOP queros, Native Americans, and African Fort Worth LEFT: Cuero’s Americans.
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