Up the trail : how Texas cowboys herded longhorns and became an American icon / Tim Lehman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lehman, Tim, author.

Series:

How things worked

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cattle drives--West (U.S.).

Cattle drives.

Cattle drives--Texas.

Texas longhorn cattle.

Cowboys--West (U.S.)--History.

Cowboys.

History.

Cattle trade--West (U.S.)--History.

Cattle trade.

Texas.

West United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

172 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

How Texas cowboys herded longhorns and became an American icon

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Summary:

"Few adventures in the American West surpassed the practice, in the years soon after the Civil War, of taking herds of Longhorn cattle from Texas grasslands to Kansas. There, in towns like Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, buyers paid off ranchers, ranchers paid off cowboys, and railroad lines took the cattle east to the packing plants of St. Louis and Chicago. The drives covered hundreds of miles and took weeks of grueling work. They relied on extensive planning, complicated logistics, great skill, and much good luck. In Up the Trail, Tim Lehman examines this most American of industries, situating western cattle drives into the larger story of postwar economic development--the rise of national markets, large industry, and railroads--and answering questions about that most iconic of American figures--why and how the cowboy become a steadfast American hero."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

How cowboys and longhorns came to Texas

How the cattle market boomed and busted

How to organize the largest, longest cattle drive ever

How Kansas survived the longhorn invasion

How the trails died and the cowboy lived on.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421425894

9781421425900

1421425890

1421425904

OCLC:

1005801740