title: The Western: The Greatest Texas Cattle Trail, 1874 - 1886
author:  Gary Kraisinger 
description: Right after the Civil War, Texas cattlemen drove cattle north to feed the developing north and to stock the vast new ranches. The greatest of these cattle trails was a trail that came out of south Texas toward Dodge City, Kansas, on to Ogallala, Nebraska, and as far north as Canada. In twelve seasons it carried over six million longhorns. It became known, for the most part, as the Western. Now for the first time, based on stories and memories of homesteaders and cowboys and other documentation, the authors tell the history of the Trail and show through detailed maps the exact cattle routes of the Western Trail. The coffee-table size book is heavily footnoted, packed with delightful accounts from people who were there, and has some forty vintage photos. For those who enjoy reading about the true Old West and the industry that introduced an American icon, the cowboy, this is a must book to own.
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  This book made available by the Internet Archive.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  top man with a gun
  
  
  Author's note:
  
  
  It is to be hoped that Western history enthusiasts will forgive liberties
  taken by the author with respect to the dates of the first of the great cattle
  drives. QuantrilPs raid on Lawrence, Kansas, occurred in August of 1863, while
  the great cattle drives actually began in 1866 and the first drives to the new
  railhead at Abilene in 1867. In the interests of story continuity, however,
  several of these years have been telescoped together.
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  
  IT WAS A DAY like any August day in Eastern Kansas —sky that was blue and all
  but cloudless, hot sun, the lazily whispering Kaw River below the spot w