Sam P. Ridings - The Chisholm Trail: a history of the worlds greatest cattle trail: together with a description of the persons, a narrative of the events, and reminiscences associated with the same

A noble book, rich in anecdote and character .

J. FRANK DOBIE

This frontier classic is a comprehensive history of the worlds greatest cattle trail, the Chisholm Trail, which ran from San Antonio, Texas, to Abilene, Kansas approximately eight hundred miles. It is one of the best books written about the cattle drives of our western frontier and the colorful characters associated with them, including Charles Goodnight, Charles A. Siringo, Joseph G. McCoy, and various gunslingers and Indian chiefs.

Before the Civil War, Texas cattle were driven to the large markets of the North through Missouri. However, the longhorns carried ticks that transmitted disease to other livestock, and consequently Missouri farmers stopped the herds from passing through the state. It became difficult to get cattle to the markets in the North.

During the Civil War, Texas ranchers went off to serve the Confederate cause. Few of the cattle they left behind were slaughtered in their absence, it not being possible to transport the longhorns out of Texas given Union control of the Mississippi River and the fact that destination Northern states were not part of the Confederacy. The herds grew so large that the animals sold for only four dollars a head in Texas, compared with the forty dollars a head paid in the North and East. Clearly there was money to be had in moving cattle northward.

When the Kansas Pacific Railway extended to Abilene after the war, cattleman Joseph G. McCoy saw his chance. Sam P. Ridings, author of the current work, writes that McCoy

built shipping pens at Abilene, sent messengers out to meet [the herds], and advertised Abilene generally as the great shipping point on the new Kansas Pacific Railway. On account of the efforts, energy, and labor of young McCoy, Abilene became famous throughout the West as the northern terminus of the Chisholm Trail.

Six million cattle and an equal number of mustangs traveled the trail (named for Jesse Chisholm, a trader) in the years of its most active usage. During the two or three months required to traverse the entire route, drovers crossed rivers, canyons, and mountains and dealt with Indian ambushes, cattle rustlers, and stampedes.

Sam P. Ridings (18681942) was a prominent Kansas attorney who spent six years studying the Chisholm Trail. According to reviewer J. Frank Dobie, Ridings went over the land, lived with range men, studied history before he wrote. Dobie called Ridings work a noble book, rich in anecdote and character.

This edition of The Chisholm Trail: A History of the Worlds Greatest Cattle Trail is an exact facsimile of the first edition of 1936.

Les Adams
Chairman, Editorial Board

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

OCTOBER 9, 2012

SAM P. RIDINGS

This picture is inserted in consideration of the fact that the reader of any book of this character should consider the same a conversation with the author; and, by being able to see a picture of the person with whom such conversation is had, it should add to the interest of the same. How much more can you appreciate a broadcast on your radio if you know what the broadcaster looks like? In this publication, the writer is speaking to you, telling you what he saw, heard, and knows of the old trails, cow-camps, plains, and frontier of over fifty years ago.

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2015
Special Contents 2012 Palladium Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Anthony Morais
Cover photo credit Thinkstock

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-266-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-768-5

Printed in the United States of America

To my wife, Nettie L. Ridings, and to my three children, Pauline Breeden of Kemmerer, Wyoming, Capt. Eugene W. Ridings of the United States Army, and Marie Cooke of Merigold, Mississippi, this volume is affectionately dedicated by the author.

S. P. R.

It is the universal attitude and characteristic of the men who traveled the old trails of the West to have a very great desire for the name and correct location of the same to be perpetuated. Such is more important in their minds than the preservation of the history of their own families or of their ancestral homes. This is the paramount feeling that has impelled the production of this volume. There are others as hereinafter set out.

As the ranks of the men, who traveled the plains and the frontiers of over fifty years ago, grow thinner year by year, the writer has discovered that, when friends induce him to talk of happenings and historical events of the Old West, they become very much interested. This is true, even though such narratives seem very commonplace to the writer and were considered of very little importance when they happened.

A record of some of the events and historical matters dealt with in this volume, in the opinion of the writer, should be preserved for the consideration of future generations, and no such record of many of the same has been recorded or retained. This being true, this history will be lost unless written by someone. If the efforts of the writer will result in placing some of the same in the history of the age in which they belong, this volume has served its purpose, and the labors of the writer have not been expended in vain.

In this production it is impossible to deal extensively and in detail with the various subjects herein touched upon. It is only the purpose of the writer to give a general consideration of each of these matters, and if the reader is further interested in any of them, he or she is advised to seek a work devoted exclusively to the subject desired. Persons generally have been so busy with the other affairs of life, that they have not had their attention called, even in a general way, to most of the historical matters herein referred to. The writer in producing this work has dealt with the subjects that he considers the reader would desire to gain information in reference to, and while in some particulars it may appear that he has departed somewhat from his subject, he has written what he considers would be of interest to his readers.

In either reading or writing the writer abhors the constant use of the personal pronoun I, and for that reason this volume is, as far as possible, written in the third person, and he has attempted to eliminate entirely the personal pronoun of the first person singular.