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Famous Cattle Towns

Wichita, Kansas: The Chisholm Trail Cow Town That Became a City

Wichita lived as a Texas cattle market for only a few seasons in the 1870s, but those seasons gave the city its start.

How did Wichita start?

Wichita began at the meeting of the Arkansas River and the Little Arkansas River. J.R. Mead opened a trading post there, and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce history dates the post and the first Wichita Town Company to 1868, with Mead and six others as original incorporators. Other accounts place Mead's trading post as early as 1864 and a townsite layout in 1865, so sources differ on the earliest dates. What is firm is the paperwork: Wichita was incorporated as a third-class city on July 21, 1870, on a petition signed by 123 men and one woman, Catherine McCarty. It moved up to a second-class city in late 1872.

The town sat where trade routes already crossed. Jesse Chisholm had first come to the area around 1863 leading a party of hunters and adventurers, and he later marked the trail that carries his name. That trail tied Wichita to the cattle country of Texas hundreds of miles to the south, and to the railroads that were pushing across Kansas.

Why did Texas cattle come to Kansas?

After the Civil War the northern states were short of beef, while Texas held an estimated five million cattle and had no railroads to move them. The Kansas Historical Society's cowtown article describes drives running from 1866 to 1885, with hundreds of thousands of longhorns walked north each year. A steer worth a few dollars in Texas could bring many times that at a northern market, which is what made the long walk pay.

Kansas towns competed for that business. Abilene came first, then Newton and Ellsworth, and then Wichita as the Chisholm Trail brought herds up through Indian Territory to a railhead on the Arkansas River.

When was Wichita a cattle town?

The railroad made the difference. The Wichita and South Western Railroad reached the town in 1872 and connected it to the Santa Fe trunk line, so Texas herds had a place to be sold and loaded. The Kansas Historical Society reports that 66,000 head shipped from Wichita in 1873, about twice as many as from Ellsworth that year.

The Wichita Chamber of Commerce gives a bigger figure for 1872, saying about 350,000 head were sold in the town for more than $2 million. The two numbers measure different things, cattle sold and cattle shipped by rail, and the gap shows how much of the trade involved herds that were bought and moved on to other ranges. Legends of America's Kansas cowtown survey describes the cowtown period as running mainly from 1872 to 1876.

Life in the cowtown: saloons, law and Wyatt Earp

A cattle town was built to serve drovers who arrived after weeks on the trail with pay in their pockets. Saloons, dance halls and gambling rooms followed them, and so did violence. The dance hall owner Rowdy Joe Lowe shot and killed a rival nicknamed Red Beard, an episode that has stayed with the town's reputation. Wyatt Earp served on the Wichita police force in 1875 and 1876, near the end of the cattle years.

The sources do not give a clean count of killings or arrests, so this page does not offer one. What they do agree on is the pattern: the trade was profitable, the town tolerated much of the rowdiness while the money flowed, and respectable residents grew less patient as the town grew.

What Made It Work

Wichita did not hold the cattle trade for long, but it took more from those years than most cow towns did. The record shows a handful of choices that explain why.

The cattle money was a starting point rather than the whole economy, and the town's later history shows it kept growing after the herds left.

  • It secured a railroad link in 1872, which turned a trail stop into a shipping point.
  • It sat on the Chisholm Trail, the main route to several Kansas cowtowns, so Texas herds were already coming north.
  • It incorporated early, in 1870, giving it a city government before the cattle boom began.
  • It competed openly with Ellsworth and Abilene, and in 1873 it shipped roughly twice as many cattle as Ellsworth.
  • It did not depend on cattle alone: the trade ended after only a few seasons and the city went on growing.
  • The cost was real: the cowtown years brought saloons, shootings and a rough reputation that residents later worked to leave behind.

Why did the cattle trade leave Wichita?

The trade shifted west in the late 1870s as rail lines were built farther into cattle country. Quarantine laws against Texas cattle, aimed at the tick-borne illness then called Texas fever, also closed the area around Wichita to the trade, and Dodge City took its place as the principal Kansas cowtown. The Wichita Chamber of Commerce notes that the town declined after the herds left and had recovered by 1880.

Farming settlement and fencing were part of the same story. As homesteaders took up land along the trail, farmers had little reason to welcome herds that trampled crops and carried disease.

From cowtown to the Air Capital

Wichita's next boom came from aircraft. Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna and others started the local aircraft industry, and the city became known as the Air Capital of the World. The chamber history reports that Spirit AeroSystems, which grew out of Stearman's company after Boeing bought it, is Wichita's largest employer with more than 20,000 employees.

Today Wichita is the largest city in Kansas, and its cattle past lives mostly in museum interpretation and local memory. For more on drives and cattle towns generally, see the ranching coverage at farm.FM's ranching section, and for a related read try a farm.FM story about the Chisholm Trail.

Timeline

  1. 1863Jesse Chisholm first comes to the area leading a party of hunters, according to the Wichita Chamber of Commerce
  2. 1868J.R. Mead trading post and Wichita Town Company, per the chamber history
  3. 1870Wichita incorporated as a third-class city on July 21
  4. 1872The Wichita and South Western Railroad reaches town; city becomes second-class
  5. 1873About 66,000 head shipped, roughly twice Ellsworth's total
  6. 1875Wyatt Earp joins the police force; he serves through 1876
  7. 1876Cattle trade shifts west toward Dodge City
  8. 1880Wichita recovered from its decline, per the chamber history

Frequently asked questions

Was Wichita a cow town?

Yes. Wichita served as a Texas cattle market mainly from 1872 to 1876, after the Wichita and South Western Railroad arrived. Herds came up the Chisholm Trail, and the trade then moved west to Dodge City.

How many cattle did Wichita ship in 1873?

The Kansas Historical Society reports 66,000 head shipped from Wichita in 1873, about twice as many as Ellsworth. The Wichita Chamber of Commerce separately reports about 350,000 head sold there in 1872.

Did Wyatt Earp work in Wichita?

Yes. Wyatt Earp served on the Wichita police force in 1875 and 1876, according to the Kansas Historical Society and Legends of America, near the end of the town's cattle years.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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