Great Western Cattle Trail

The Great Western Cattle Trail was used during the 19th century for movement of cattle and horses to markets in eastern and northern states. The trail was also known as the Western Trail, Fort Griffin Trail, Dodge City Trail, Northern Trail and Texas Trail. It replaced the Chisholm trail when it closed. While it wasn't as well known, it was greater in length, reaching rail-heads up in Kansas and Nebraska and carried longhorns and horses to stock open-range ranches in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and two provinces in Canada.

The Great Western Trail went west of and roughly parallel to the Chisholm Trail into Kansas. The cattle were taken to towns which were located on major railroads and delivered north to establish ranches. Although rail lines were built in Texas, the cattle drives continued north because of Texas rail prices, it was more profitable to trail them north.

The Great Western Cattle Trail was first traveled by Captain John T. Lytle in 1874 when he was transporting 3,500 longhorn cattle up from Southern Texas into Nebraska. In five short years, it became one of the most traveled and famous Cattle Trails in U.S. history. Despite its popularity, traffic along the trail began to decline in 1885 due to the spreading use of barbed wire fences and the legislation calling for a quarantine of Texas cattle due to the "Texas Fever" - a disease spread by a parasitic tick. The last major Cattle drive up the trail was on its way to Deadwood, South Dakota in 1893. By that time there had been an estimated six to seven million cattle and one million horses that had traversed the trail. Later, in order to commemorate the significance of the Cattle Drive era, two markers were erected in the 1930s at Doan's. Doan's was seen as the last "stepping-off point" before entering Indian Territory that sold supplies, ammo, tobacco, provisions, Stetson hats & guns, and anything else that would be required on the long trek. C.E. Doan had kept a meticulous record of the companies and Trail Bosses along with the number of cattle that crossed his path each year, allowing for numbers and history to be preserved, so a marker was fitting. In 2003 a new project was launched in order to place cement markers every six to ten miles along the trail, from the Rio Grande to Ogallala, Nebraska. Oklahoma set the first post south of the city at Altus.

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Wikipedia