After the Civil War freed slaves, ex-Rebels, out of work Union soldiers, and others all moved westward looking for work and found it on cattle ranches that revived when their owners returned from the war.
In the twenty years following the Civil War most cowboys found work punching longhorns north from Texas to the railheads in Kansas.
The Chisholm Trail, first used by rancher John Chisholm, was one of the main routes that the cattle drives took going north. It started in Texas and ended at Abilene and Dodge City.
Dodge City was developed for the buffalo hunting trade but became a major cow town after the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad made it a railhead.
The invention of barbed wire made cattle drives more difficult as farmers fenced off their farms that straddled the trail routes. Barbed wire also broke down the idea of open range and changed the nature of the cattle business.
The winter of 1886 followed a drought and was very bad. Huge numbers of cattle died and forced ranchers to realize that the years of open range and cattle drives were over.
