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Cattle Trailing in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

R. Taylor Dennen
R. Taylor Dennen
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

In a recent article in this Journal David Galenson presents an interesting hypothesis about the impact of changing relative prices on the cattle driving industry in the late nineteenth-century West. Briefly, he argues that movements of.cattle prices in the urban marketing centers relative to the local prices in the range areas affected the profitability of the industry and thus the quantity of cattle driven north from Texas. Unfortunately, in testing his hypothesis, Mr. Galenson has incorrectly interpreted the history of the southern Great Plains.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 1975 , pp. 458 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1975

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References

1 “The End of the Chisholm Trail,” Journal of Economic History, xxxrv (June 1974), 350–364Google Scholar.

2 Although by this time, the open range cattle industry had for the most part been driven out of Kansas by the influx of farmers. See R. Taylor Dennen, “From Common to Private Property: The Enclosure of the Open Range,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, forthcoming.

3 The movement of the dead line is recorded in the county histories of Kansas. For example, in 1883 it was extended sufficiently far west to exclude Texas cattle from Gove County. See Harrington, W. P., History of Gone County, Kansas (Gove City: Republican-Gazette Office, 1930)Google Scholar. A brief secondary history of the Kansas quarantine is given by Skaggs, Jimmy M., The Cattle Trailing Industry (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1973) pp. 107–114Google Scholar. Additional primary sources are cited there. Mr. Galenson has apparently drawn the erroneous conclusion that the quarantine was not enforced from the fact that it was, until 1885, partial.

4 A copy of the quarantine law may be found in Joseph Nimmo, Jr., Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, House Executive Document 7, part 3, 48th Congress, 2nd Session (1884–1885), Serial 2295, pp. 228–229.

5 The laws adopted in Colorado and New Mexico may be found in ibid., p. 230 and pp. 235–236. The law for Colorado is dated March, 1885. That for New Mexico was adopted in March, 1884.

6 Holden, William C., Alkali Trails (Dallas: Southwest Press, 1930) p. 42Google Scholar. The shift of the trail to Colorado raised the ire of cattlemen in southern Colorado. The Bent County Stock Association adopted a resolution in April 1885, “That we will prevent by all civil means the driving of herds from other states and territories over our ranges.” A group of Denver businessmen, with fantasies of fat commissions dancing before their eyes, made a tour of the southern part of the state in an attempt to cool tempers. These facts are recorded in the minutes of meetings for 1885 in the Record of the Bent County Stock Association, unpublished manuscript in the archives of the University or Wyoming Library, Laramie, Wyoming.

7 Holden, Alkali Trails, p. 37. Skaggs, Cattle Trailing, p. 120.

8 “Memoirs of Bob Fudge—A Cowboy,” unpublished manuscript in the archives of the Montana State Historical Society Library, Helena, Montana, p. 39.

9 Shafer, George, “Early History of McKenzie County,” Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, IV (1913), p. 44Google Scholar;

10 Galenson, p. 361. There is also a problem with the price indices themselves. Mr. Galenson did not seasonally adjust the prices before taking the averages. Yet even today in a period with a well organized futures market, cattle prices are highly variable seasonally as all of us, including the President's Cost of Living Council, are only too aware. Moreover, prices varied by grade of cattle. It is unclear if the prices in the indices are for comparable grades of beef. For an example of the impact of seasons and grades on prices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Chicago Daily Drovers Journal, Drovers Journal Yearbook of Figures, 1925 (Chicago: Drovers Journal Publishing Company, 1926)Google Scholar.