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Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest (The Southwest historical series, 8)

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Joseph McCoy was the founder of Abilene, Kansas, and chief promoter of the town as a railhead for the cattle trade. After building stockyards in the town and laying out a trail stretching south to Corpus Christi (later known as the Chisholm Trail), he convinced Texas cattlemen to drive their cattle to Abilene. In its first year of existence (1867), 35,000 head of cattle made their way to the new town. Within only a few years Abilene was a boomtown with hundreds of thousands of cattle being shipped from it yearly. Seven years later McCoy penned this comprehensive history of the western (mainly Texas, but including Colorado and New Mexico as well) cattle trade.

Although chiefly concerned with the business aspects, McCoy describes many components of the trade, from the life of the cowboy on the trail to the packing houses in Kansas City. There are chapters on the difficulties with the railroads (especially the Kansas Pacific, which reneged on its contract with McCoy in the 1870s), the "Spanish fever" which infected many of the Texas herds, the prejudice against longhorn cattle because they spread disease among the other cattle, the effect of the Panic of 1873, stock ranching, and the famous Drovers Cottage in Abilene, the hotel built for stock buyers and cattlemen. McCoy's account is authoritative and interesting. Just as good is the long introduction by editor Ralph Bieber, which expands on McCoy's treatment time-wise, and is a concise though thorough history of the cattle business from early Spanish days to 1867, and includes a detailed biographical sketch of McCoy. Highly recommended.