Famous Texans: The Longhorns and cattle drives (Part 2)

The Civil war had ended and the returning soldiers and leaders of Texas began looking around for a way to jumpstart the Texas economy. Many began looking at all those longhorns that had been breeding for 200 years practically unmolested. Cattle drives were not new for Texas as herds were driven east to Louisiana, or south to Mexico but were limited. The markets in the East were teeming with new money. Business had been good in the North, the war had brought prosperity to many. The railroads through the south had been destroyed by the war, so rail to and from the East was limited. The eastern beef was expensive, and steak for the common man was out of reach. So a group of Texas ranchers pulled together a large herd and headed north for the rail head at Sedalia, Mo. But the drive was thwarted when the farmers of eastern Mo. stopped the drive. The farmers were afraid the stock would trample their crops and formed another armed blockade. The drive failed and most of the investors went bankrupt. The wharves in Galveston, Jefferson, and Shreveport all opened up as the North’s blockade of Sothern ports had ended, but shipping cattle by boat was expensive and once again cotton had priority.

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