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Transporting Beef: Trails, Rails and Ships

The Great Western Cattle Trail: How Texas Beef Reached Dodge City and Beyond

Running west of the Chisholm Trail, the Western Trail became the main road north for Texas cattle once Kansas closed its eastern rail depots.

What was the Great Western Cattle Trail?

The Great Western Cattle Trail is the name used today for the cattle road that ran north from Texas to Kansas and beyond in the late nineteenth century. It lay west of the better-known Chisholm Trail and roughly parallel to it. Drovers used it to move beef cattle and horses to markets in the eastern and northern states, and it reached an extra major railhead in Kansas where beef could be put on cars for Chicago.

Cowboys called it the Western Trail, and the longer name came later, as historians and trail groups tried to give the route a clear identity next to the Chisholm Trail. This page covers who opened the road, where it ran, why it worked and how it is remembered. Rail history from the stock car article helps explain why drovers walked cattle so far.

How did the trail begin in 1874?

The usual starting point is 1874. According to the Wikipedia trail article, which draws on the work of Gary and Margaret Kraisinger, John T. Lytle left his Medina County, Texas, ranch with Tom M. McDaniel that year to deliver 3,500 head of aged steers to the Red Cloud Indian Agency in western Nebraska. Lytle held a government contract for the newly set up agency and needed a fresh route.

The line he blazed ran across Texas by way of Fort Griffin, through Indian Territory by way of Camp Supply, and then past Dodge City, Kansas. Other outfits followed the same ground, and the road became known as the Western Trail. Feeder routes grew out of it, reaching back toward Brownsville, San Antonio, Bandera and the Kerrville area, so cattle from much of South Texas could join the main line.

Why did Texas herds shift west?

Part of the answer is rail freight. Although railroads were built in Texas, high freight prices for stock meant it was still more profitable to drive cattle north to the big east-west lines in Kansas. The Wikipedia article on refrigerator cars adds the scale of the problem: before the Western Trail, herds had to walk as far as 1,200 miles to Kansas City or to railheads such as Abilene (1867) and Dodge City (1872), losing weight and sometimes animals on the way.

The second part was law. The 1875 Kansas quarantine law eventually shut down the eastern Kansas rail depots, which pushed trade toward Dodge City and Ogallala, Nebraska, and made them cattle towns. From 1875 until 1880 the Chisholm Trail itself became a feeder route into the Western Trail. By that point the trail had stopped being one man's contract road and had become the main funnel for Texas cattle.

The route and Doan's Crossing

South of Kansas the trail's best-known landmark is Doan's Crossing on the Red River, north of the present ghost town of Doans in Wilbarger County, Texas. Corwin F. Doan (1848 to 1929) was the postmaster there and also ran a store that supplied the cowboys. The adobe house built in 1881 is described as the oldest in Wilbarger County and is open for tours during the annual Doan's May Day Picnic.

In 1881 Doan noted that the trail reached its peak, with 301,000 head of cattle driven past his crossing. That figure comes from Doan's own count as quoted in the source article, so treat it as a reported number, but it is the number most often repeated for the trail's busiest season. Further north the trail passed through Indian Territory and Dodge City, then onward toward Ogallala, where longhorns and horses could continue by trail to stock open-range ranches in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The XIT Ranch drives, 1885 to 1897

A western extension of the trail was used by the XIT Ranch for drives from Tascosa to Dodge City until 1885. Afterward, the northern portion of the route linked Buffalo Springs to the XIT range on Cedar Creek, 60 miles north of Miles City, Montana. That trail was used from 1886 until 1897, passing through Lamar, Kit Carson and Lusk.

Over a period of three months, some 10,000 to 12,500 steers were moved from the Yellow Houses at the south end of the XIT Ranch about 1,000 miles north to Cedar Creek. There they grazed for two years before being shipped to Chicago. The pattern is worth noticing: Texas bred the cattle, Montana grass finished them, and the railroad took them to the packers.

What Made It Work

The Western Trail did not succeed because it was easy. It succeeded because it answered a set of economic problems at once. The record in the sources shows several concrete reasons for it.

The trail also had costs that the cheerful trail-drive stories skip. It ran through lands that were home to Native nations, including Indian Territory, and its first drive was made to supply an Indian agency under a government contract, not just to feed eastern butchers. It also ended abruptly: use stopped in 1897, once railroads, fencing and settlement had taken over its work.

  • It reached a railhead that stayed open. When Kansas quarantine law closed eastern depots after 1875, Dodge City and Ogallala became the shipping points.
  • It started with a contract. Lytle's 1874 drive had a government beef contract for the Red Cloud Agency, so the cattle had a buyer before the herd left Texas.
  • It used feeder routes. Branches from Brownsville, San Antonio, Bandera and Kerrville, and later the Chisholm Trail itself, brought many herds into one main road.
  • It had a reliable crossing and supply point. Doan's Crossing on the Red River offered a store and a post office to trail crews.
  • It supported a long-range ranch system. The XIT drives show that northern grass could fatten Texas cattle for two years before they went to Chicago.

How the trail is remembered

In 2003 a project began to place cement markers every six to ten miles along the trail from the Rio Grande to Ogallala. Oklahoma set the first post south of the city of Altus. Texas placed its first marker at Doan's adobe house during the 121st Doan's May Day Picnic in 2005, an event held annually at the site. In 2004, Rotary International began to mark the Western Cattle Trail along its full length, from the Matamoros, Texas, area to Val Marie, Canada, according to the Kraisingers.

The 1931 Trail Drivers Monument at Doans includes a sculpture by Harold Dow Bugbee, who was later curator of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. It shows longhorns and a cowboy crossing the Red River.

Visit or learn more

If you want to walk the ground, Doan's Crossing and its May Day picnic are the clearest starting point.

For the cowboy's side of the story, farm.FM keeps a section on ranching that picks up where the trail drives left off. You can start at the ranching section on farm.FM, or read a farm.FM story about the old Texas cattle trails.

Timeline

  1. 1857First consignment of dressed beef leaves Chicago stockyards in ice-filled boxcars (context)
  2. 1872Dodge City, Kansas, becomes a railhead on the Santa Fe line
  3. 1874John T. Lytle and Tom M. McDaniel drive 3,500 steers to the Red Cloud Agency, opening the route
  4. 1875Kansas quarantine law begins closing eastern Kansas rail depots
  5. 1875-1880Chisholm Trail acts as a feeder into the Western Trail
  6. 1881Peak year: 301,000 head reported passing Doan's Crossing; Doan's adobe house built
  7. 1885XIT Ranch ends its Tascosa to Dodge City drives
  8. 1886-1897Northern extension carries XIT steers to Cedar Creek, Montana
  9. 1931Trail Drivers Monument dedicated at Doans
  10. 2003Cement trail markers project launched

Frequently asked questions

What was the Great Western Cattle Trail?

It was a late nineteenth-century cattle road from South Texas through Fort Griffin, Doan's Crossing and Dodge City, Kansas, and on to Nebraska and Montana, used for moving beef and horses to railheads and northern ranges.

When was the Western Trail used?

It was in use from 1874, when John T. Lytle opened the route, until 1897, when the last northern drives for the XIT Ranch ended. Traffic was reported to peak in 1881.

How is the Western Trail different from the Chisholm Trail?

The Western Trail ran west of and roughly parallel to the Chisholm Trail. After Kansas closed eastern depots in 1875, it reached Dodge City, and from 1875 to 1880 the Chisholm became a feeder into it.

Where is Doan's Crossing?

Doan's Crossing is on the Red River north of the ghost town of Doans in Wilbarger County, Texas. Corwin Doan ran a store and post office there, and an 1881 adobe house survives.

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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