The
iconic Western cowboy myth.....from the Arkansas Ozarks?
The image of cowboy drovers driving cattle north from Texas to railheads in Kansas and Missouri is the essence of the vision of the West, but they were Johnnys come lately. In the early 1850s, Arkansas saw the first wave of cattle drives, not north, but west to California, in a response to first-hand experience in the gold fields. Cattle were in short supply in the mining fields. A few from Arkansas returned home from their foray into prospecting with the idea of driving cattle, which were bringing $5-10 a head in Arkansas, to California, where $50 a head was the going price.
This was a bold venture. The distance alone was daunting: from Fort Smith or less often from the area of the future Harrison, Arkansas to interior California, across the Rocky Mountains, innumerable rivers, great stretches of deserts and hostile Indians and Mormons.
First they had to cross into Indian Territory, and choose between the northern and southern trails to California. "The northern trail followed the Arkansas River into Colorado, across northern Utah, and then along the Humboldt River through Nevada and into north-central California. The southern trail followed the Butterfield Stage route through Texas and along the southern edge of what is today New Mexico and Arizona then northward to San Francisco."
The northern trail was used more, although longer, with the high mountains and the presence of buffalo. Thomas Jefferson Linton's experience is the best documented, from his letters to his wife. He made it to California and worked odd jobs for months while he fattened out his cattle, noting they sold for $53.00 a head. On the other hand, the Fancher party from Arkansas was attacked as they camped in Utah, by hostile Indians and their Mormon allies, killing most of the party and stealing their cattle.
Cattle were lost to river crossings, thefts by hostile Native Americans, rustlers and the occasional grizzly bear. Lack of water and forage killed cows, especially in the unpredictable crossing of Nevada. One U.S. Army officer wrote that while traveling the Humboldt route through Nevada, "I seldom found myself out of sight of dead cattle over 500 miles."
Those who made the drives early in the gold rush fared best. An early Arkansas miner-turned-drover was 26-year-old James Miles Moose of Conway County. During his brief and unproductive career as a miner, Moose noticed that beef was exceedingly expensive in the mining camps. He returned to Arkansas and assembled a large herd, realizing that the potential for profit was enormous.
His 1851 drive to California was a huge success, each cow bringing a substantial profit. Returning to Arkansas, Moose bought property near where the present city of Morrilton stands, and the family is still prominent. By 1857, there was a glut of beef in the California market and the Arkansas cattle drive days came to an end.
Sources: www.arkansasonline.com; Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Autumn 1969;
https://ftwtoday.6amcity.com; https://www.nps.gov/grko/learn/historyculture/traildrives.htm
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