Essay On The Cattle Industry

The article, “Creating the System: Railroads and the Modern Corporation”, informs us all about the development of the transcontinental railroad and how it helped drive the nation west and also transformed western North America into a economy that had many opportunities. The railroads have always interested me when it comes to this period of time. What I learned from the reading that I didn’t know before was that the Western railroads were primary carriers of grain, other agricultural produce, livestock, coal, lumber and minerals. Also seeing the prices that the farmers shipped their products for, and what they paid for the freights rates was very interesting. Overall, if the railroads wouldn’t have been built in a time when there was so little

As an example, Document 5 shows the buffalo being killed and loaded onto the train. So, now they could be shipped to the businesses in a much more efficient time frame. Furthermore, many industrial companies such as steel and lumber benefited greatly because their merchandise could be shipped throughout the country, which means more orders, and more money. In addition, the railroads made travelling to the west much more safer and quicker. As stated in Document 4, the trains allow you to avoid the dangers of the sea, and the journey was less than 4 days long. With this in mind, before the transcontinental railroad was built, the journey to the west was long, hard, and filled with

After President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, everyone was eager for the construction to begin. The railroad was needed to connect California to the eastern and midwestern large cities in order to ship valuables and natural resources. The problem for the Indians was that the tracks would be set right through their ancestral land. Unfortunately, The United States could care less about the native’s wants because the construction of the railroad was seen beneficial to them. One of the many reasons was because it provided Americans and immigrants with jobs. The decline in buffalo began when they would stampede across the tracks. White workers decided that they were getting “in the way” and would kill massive herds at a time. This leads in to the most important reason for the decline of the Plains culture and their ultimate defeat, the Buffalo.

The Great Plains were home to many Native Americans and several animals, most importantly the buffalo. Life was peaceful for the Native Americans until the railroad started being built and Americans began to expand westward. The Great Plains at first were viewed at in a negative way by the Americans because they thought it was just a “useless wasteland.” Americans thought that this land was too dry for their farming and agriculture. As these railroads were built westward Americans realized how beneficial they actually were. For example, many settlers found no dry land, but millions of acres of fertile soil. Also, cattlemen saw an open range for cattle and the opportunities here started to open up. Although this land was already taken by both Native Americans and buffalo, that meant nothing to the new settlers as they planned to get rid of both of them (Doc 1). I thought that the expansion of the Great Plains was negative for the Indians, but also positive for the Americans. I believe that the expansion of the railroad was positive for the Americans because as I said earlier, it brought them new opportunities find better lives and better land. It was very negative for the Indian because Americans decided to invade their land and get rid of them and

Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and the "open range" cattle industry. What ended this brief but colorful boom? What was the long-run nature of the cattle business?

Longhorn Cattle have a long history to go with their long horns that they are known for which can grow up to seven feet wide. Their progenitors were acquainted with the New World in 1493 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the present-day Caribbean Islands. As Spanish moved north they carried the cows with them and in the eighteen - hundreds longhorns touched base in the zone that would get to be Texas. These cattle were viewed as wild until tamed in the nineteenth century. (Radke)

In addition, Europeans introduced horses and livestock to the environment of the new world. The horses were effective form of transportation that enabled many Indians to improve their lifestyles. The introduction of horses to plains Indianas, for example, enabled them to hunt bison with far better results, they were able to hunt more bison with the use of horses. Horses also enabled them to be more nomadic, the Indians were able to carry more items far further distances and able to move around more. The addition of livestock such as cattle in the Americas added to the food supply of the Americas. The livestock provided more food containing protein and other minerals. The introduction of horses and livestock mainly benefited the Indians' lives.

The state led the nation in cattle and calves, beef cows, calves, cattle on feed, total value of cattle and calves, and cash receipts—1993 sales. Texas also has been number one in number of farms and ranches and total farm and ranch land. The Texas ranching industry has changed drastically from its early beginnings. The day of the longhorn and the sprawling King Ranch have been replaced by the rise of commercial feedlots, sophisticated slaughter and meat-packing industries, spreading use of computers, and an intensive search for export markets. On many ranches hunting leases have replaced cattle raising. King, Kenedy, and O'Connor would perhaps think it outlandish, as well as entrepreneurially interesting, that on some ranches, ostriches and zebras are now more plentiful than

As the United States grew in the beginning of the 20th century the demand for meat was always needed. Fortunately for the young state of Oklahoma the prairie lands of the Great Plains were a perfect area to feed the numerous heads of animals sent to the butchers that fed America. In 1907, there were 1,206,800 animals within Oklahoma; nearly all farmers in every country of Oklahoma raised hogs (Goins and Goble, 171). Oklahoma’s ranching economy changed in the youthful years of statehood as the profession of ranching became more commercialized with intent to maximize the meat per hoof, which would increase the profit margins (Baird and Goble, 194). One way the ranchers maximized the meat per hoof was the replacement of Spanish breed longhorn cattle for the heartier English breed, Hereford (Baird and Goble, 194). “Herefords were raised in such numbers that many referred to Oklahoma as ‘Hereford Heaven’ (Goins and Goble 172)”. As mentioned before plains of Oklahoma were ideal for grazing

In the early 1820s the first Anglo-American settlers moved into Texas. As these settlers moved from East Texas to Central Texas to West Texas and other settlers moved to these areas from South Texas, a blending of the Anglo and Spanish-Mexican cultures occurred. With the Spanish-Mexican knowledge of riding, roping, herding, and branding available, events occurred that culminated in the Southwest cattle industry. The abundance of wild cattle and horses and an Eastern market for beef after the Civil War led to cattle drives to the railheads, which made ranching a profitable business for people such as John S. Chisum, Oliver Loving, and Charles Goodnight. The adventure and independence of herding cattle to market or working on the open range caught the imagination of many young men seeking jobs. They bought saddles and signed on with an outfit. The range cowboy and the cattle industry flourished in the Southwest, especially in West Texas and the Panhandle of Texas, with the establishment of large ranches such as the JA, XIT, Waggoner, Four Sixes, and Pitchfork, along with many smaller ranches. However, with the fencing of the open range in the late 1880s, the cattle industry changed to a more confining job for the range cowboy. When communities sprang up, social occasions, especially Fourth of July celebrations, gave cowboys a chance to challenge the bronc riding and roping skills of cowboys from other ranches. Soon, local contests became annual events. Since the cowboy's work was often seasonal, some cowboys also signed up to exhibit their skills with wild-west shows such as the first one William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) staged in his home town of North Platte, Nebraska, on the Fourth of July, 1882. Wild-west shows led exhibitions of rodeo skills in the East and eventually in Europe. By the 1890s rodeo had become a spectator event

With people coming from the East the huge herds of American bison which the Native Americans depended on were wiped out. Farmers plowed up the natural grasses so they could plant wheat and other crops. The cattle industry used the railroad to provide a means for getting

The introduction of horses has changed the lifestyle of Indians dramatically. The change, however, has a good and a bad side. In the article, Hämäläinen indicated that “Horses did bring new possibilities, prosperity, and power to Plains Indians, but they also brought destabilization, dispossession, and destruction” (834). It happened in the late sixteenth century when the Spanish approached the Great Plain. The horse changed the lives of buffalo hunters who turned to hunt for trade from that for survival. “The core of Comancbe pastoralism was intensive trade in horses and mules, which was stimulated by a shifting political and economic geography” (Hämäläinen, 837). The tribes of the southern Plains had to make a balance between the trade economy based on horses and the subsistence economy based on bison. The southern Plains Indians became pastoral people who mainly lived on hunting and horse keeping. On the positive side, the horse has brought wealth to Southern Plains Indians. On the negative side, it ended up as a disaster for the grassland ecology and led to famine and drought.

History The most important thing is the history about cowboys. Believe it or not, they weren’t called cowboys at first, or that it started in America, it all started with the Vaqueros. Between 1519–1700s After the Spanish arrived in Mexico in 1519, ranches were

As the twentieth century approached, America was experiencing a time of considerable expansion. All eyes were looking for ways to make the United States a larger, more powerful, and more efficient country. Because of this wave in American society, there was no movement given more devotion than the settling of the West. The range-cattle industry in its various aspects, and in its importance to the United States and particularly to the Great Plains, has been a subject of focus to Americans since its origin in the mid 1800's. This industry was rendered possible by such factors as vast sections of fertile land, the rise of heavy industry involving the great demand for beef, and

Agricultural expansion was encouraged by removal of Indians from choice farmlands, liberal public land policies, development of canal and rail transportation, demand for food and fiber in the growing towns and cities, increasing exports, and especially improved farm machinery. One of the greatest advances made in agriculture before the Civil War was the shift from human to animal power and the use of new labor-saving machines. Besides the cotton gin, innovations such as iron and steel plows, reapers, threshing machines, grain drills, corn and cotton planters, and iron harrows and cultivators became common. These implements were drawn by oxen and horses. In 1800, it took fifty-six man-hours to grow (Fite 27).