Abilene, Kansas, part 1

McCoy, as well as becoming Abilene's first mayor, had some ideas swirling like dust on a cattle trail in his head. For one thing, the American Civil War was in full rage to the east. That meant men, lots and lots of men, had to be fed. McCoy had a solution to the situation in the form of a considerable amount, like in the thousands, of wild, longhorned cattle roaming among the sage and chaparral down Texas way.

This was a fine scheme but it took men to drive ornery cattle all those long miles between Texas and Kansas. The cattle-drive business really took off after the war's end with hundreds of men out of work.

Often times these men didn't even have a home to go back to. You might say that the end of soldiering birthed the real beginning of the American cowboy.

Just to give you a picture of what the cattle trade was like in profits, in 1868, M. A. Withers brought north a herd of six hundred steers. These beasts were valued at about $8 to $10 each or a sum of $5,400 down in Texas. He reached Abilene without too much loss and sold the herd for $16,800. His estimated expenses totaled about $4 per head. This left Withers with a tidy net profit of about $9,000. Not a bad deal, I'd say, and I'm betting he earned every penny of it. But pushing cows wasn't the only business turning a profit in Abilene, Kansas in those years.

Abilene, Kansas, part 2: Getting Down to Business

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1379...

Link to the index of towns in this series, listed under their present-day state name. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1379...

Also by Mary Trotter Kion at Suite 101:

http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/19602 Minnie is a slave of Negro, Irish and Indian blood. She lives on a Virginia plantation called Sunrise, in the early 1800s. Her mother is the master's mistress. Minnie believes he is her father. If correct, this would make the master's daughter Susan, Minnie's mistress, her half-sister. In fact, Minnie and Susan's relationship is more entangled that Minnie believes. Both Minnie and the unmarried Susan are pregnant, though the father of Minnie's baby is not her husband. The father of Susan's baby is not her deceased intended but someone else: a connection that will further entangle the relationship between Minnie and Susan.

Rails Across a Nation ,a Suite 101 e-Book by Mary Trotter Kion. http://www.north46.com/rails.html

Go To Page: 1 2 3