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There were drives from Texas to New Orleans starting in about 1842, some smaller ones before that. But the first big drive north from Texas on record was in 1846 when Edward Piper trailed a thousand head to Ohio. They traveled over what was known as the Texas Road to setllers, the "cattle trail" to drovers and later the Kansas Trail, then finally the Shawnee Trail. Bigger herds were trailed, in 1884, Walter Billingsley and crew moved 5,400 head from Dodge City to Montana. But the record size herd was 15,000 in 1869 from Texas to California. It wasn't until the 1860's that the many well known trails were established, like Chisum Trails, Ellisworth Trail, Goodnight-Loving Trail, and the Chisholm Trail. These were established to drive cattle to the rail heads at Dodge City, Wichita, and Abilene, Kansas for eastern markets. Most of the big drives took place after the civil war and lasted well into the 1880's. A change in the face of the drives begain with the invention of barbd wire in 1874 that fenced off water holes and feed. The great trail drives and beef bonanza came to an end, after a series of droughts, winters, and range wars, when in the winter of 1886-87 a huge number of the cattle driven north didn't survive the blistering cold because they were fenced off and couldn't get to feed. The days of the longhorn cattle was over and meatier, fatter farm raised cattle began.
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