Cattle Drives One of those routes, known as the Chisholm Trail, passed through Williamson County also view the page on the All Right Side Up exhibit at the Museum       Click here to view a video of cowboys discussing the cattle drives Click here to view a dial-up version video of cowboys discussing the cattle drives

In the latter half of the 19th Century, cattlemen rounded up longhorns by the millions in Texas, cropped their ears, branded their hides, and drove them north across the Indian Nations into Kansas along the Chisholm trail to the rail heads to be shipped back east. Somewhere along the way, without intending to do more than work for a hard day's pay and board, they launched the legend of the American cowboy.

The cattle drives followed three major routes through what is now Oklahoma and Kansas .

One of those routes, was known as the Chisholm Trail.
click here for Cattle Trailing Cattle trailing was the principal method of getting cattle to market in the late nineteenth century. It provided Texans with a practical, economical means of marketing surplus livestock.

The "Up the Chisholm Trail" event in Historic Georgetown & 
"All Right Side Up" exhibit at the Williamson County Historical Museum.

Georgetown, Texas - A herd of longhorn cattle was driven up Main Street in Georgetown to kick off a downtown celebration on Friday, August 25 to recognize the city’s location on the historic Chisholm Trail, as well as Williamson County’s rich cattle driving and raising heritage. The event took place on the square in Georgetown with entertainment for visitors of all ages, including live cowboy music by KR Wood & the Fathers of Texas, food provided by Duke’s BBQ, trick roping show by Star Varner, pony rides, western authors, historical trail drive re-enactors, exhibits by modern day cattle raisers, flag presentation by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Posse and a Chisholm Trail historical exhibit showcasing a Windberg longhorn painting “West Texas Royalty” and historic trail driving artifacts in the Williamson County Historical Museum.  Jim Gough, “The Voice of Texas”, will MC the event. 

The event followed in the tradition started by trail drivers in Williamson County in the 1860s. The father of the Longhorn Chisholm Trail, Peter Preston Ackley, coined the phrase “Up the Chisholm Trail”.  Ackley was a famous trail driver who made his first trip up the trail to Kansas as a teenager in 1878. Ackley spearheaded the trail marking movement in the 1930s in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, with the goal of placing an
“Up the Chisholm Trail” marker in every county that the trail passed through. One of these historically significant trail markers still stands at the southwest corner of the Williamson County courthouse, and is featured above, as a tribute to the trail drivers of Williamson County.  

More than five million cattle and a million mustangs were driven up the Chisholm Trail from 1867-1885, making it the largest migration of livestock in world history.  Some of the earliest cattle drives originated in Williamson County and this heritage continues today with modern day Williamson County cattle raisers pioneering the “New Chisholm Trail”, the I-35 corridor.

• click here to view a video clip of the festivities
• click here to view a dial-up version of the video clip

• photos of the festivities

click thumbnail images to view an enlarged view

a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo	a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo	a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo	a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo
	a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo	a special thanks to Pat Malinowski for this photo

here are some interesting links  

• Cowboy Tales
  This section allows the cowboys to tell their own stories, about the roundups and the trail drives. The source material is primarily from Congress of Library files, based on actual interviews with the aging men who, in their youth, drove cattle.

• Cattle Trailing Cattle trailing was the principal method of getting cattle to market in the late nineteenth century. It provided Texans with a practical, economical means of marketing surplus livestock.

• The handbook of Texas Online - Chisholm Trail
  The Chisholm Trail was the major route out of Texas for livestock. Although it was used only from 1867 to 1884, the longhorn cattle driven north along it provided a steady source of income that helped the impoverished state recover from the Civil War

• Cattle trails
  These maps show rough approximations of the routes taken by the three major cattle trails that ran from Texas north through the Indian Nations into Kansas and beyond.

• History of Cowboys and Trail Drives in Early-Day Texas - turn your sound down on this page

• Chisholm Trail-Brushy Creek River Crossing

• Cowboy songs of Chisholm Trail

• Goodbye Old Paint

• Exploring the folklore and legacy of Chisholm Trail. 

• The stork travels the Chisholm trial

• Wilbarger Texas longhorn cattle drive - Chisholm Trail - page

• Dodge City, Kansas Queen of the Cowtowns The Cowboy Capital

• Boot Hill Museum is glad to present you with an online collection of articles and images from the history of Dodge City, Kansas

• Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest, by Joseph G. McCoy

• Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight of the "Goodnight and Loving Trail"

• Charles Goodnight of the "Goodnight and Loving Trail" by PBS

• Oliver Loving of the "Goodnight and Loving Trail"
  by The Handbook of Texas Online

• The Killing of Oliver Loving of the "Goodnight and Loving Trail"

• A painting of the "Goodnight and Loving Trail"

• Cowboy Cattle Drives

• Lords of the Plains "the Comanche"

• The Shawnee Trail Early Cattle Trails Blazed Way for First Settlers

• The Great Western Cattle Trail

• Picture of the Great Western Cattle Trail 1890's

• Cattle Men and Drives

• Cattle Trails

• Photo of a woodcut depicting cattle on the trail

• Cowboys sitting in front of a chuck wagon

• Cowboys Supplies - a neat site

• Ellsworth - The Wickedest Cattletown in Kansas

• Photos of the drives

The cattle drives stop after the late 1800
because of several factors --

    1. Land owners along the trails started to fence off their lands with barbed wire. view links - Link-1 / Link-2 / Link-3 / Link-4 / Link-5 / Link-6 (video)
    2. The train companies expanded their tracks to the towns in Oklahoma          and Texas. view links - Link-1 / Link-2 / Link-3 / Link-4 / Link-5 / Link-6
    3. The 1885 Kansas quarantine law (link - because of Texas cattle fever)
         helped put the nail in the coffin.   

• Erwin E. Smith (1886–1947)  photographs cowboy life

• The jobs that cowboys had to do down on the ranch
   

• see page on the Cowboys that worked those trails