cattle trails
Herding routes westward
Cattle trails were routes used in the American West to drive herds of cattle over long distances from ranches to railheads or markets.
The most famous trails—the Chisholm Trail, the Western Trail—moved millions of cattle north from Texas to Kansas railroad towns in the decades following the Civil War.
The era of the great cattle drives ended by the 1890s as railroads expanded and barbed wire fenced the open range.
- droversLivestock transporters on foot
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
- cowboy songsMusic of the range
- branding ironsHeated tools for marking livestock
- open rangeUnfenced public grazing land
Kansas · stockyards · chuckwagon · night watch · Abilene · barbed wire · Red River · Texas · Rio Grande Valley · frontier towns · cow towns · Dodge City · grazing lands · prairie grass · dust clouds · watering holes · wranglers · Texas Longhorns
- Old Westcowboy, cowboys, cowgirl, sheriff, sheriffs
- travel routesSilk Road, Route 66, Pacific Coast Highway, trade routes, trade route
- frontier Americapioneers, settlers, homesteaders, homesteading, sodbusters
- frontier historypioneers, settlers, homesteaders, frontier tales, westward expansion
- frontier relicsarrowheads, covered wagons, wagon wheels, log cabins, sod houses
- frontier trailsCumberland Gap, mountain passes
cattle trailsrailroad lines
Fixed routes for trains
railways · transcontinental railroad · interstate highways · shipping lanes · air routes
cattle trailspaved roads
Hard-surfaced thoroughfares
highways · turnpikes · interstate system · toll roads · city streets
cattle trailsOregon Trail
Emigrant route westward
Santa Fe Trail · wagon trails · pioneer trails · Mormon Trail
cattle, trails, trail, trailed, trailing, trailer, trailers, chattel, chattels