The Long Drive
Before the Texans won independence from Mexico, stocks of Spanish cattle owned by Mexicans ranged the plains of southern Texas. Then the Mexicans were driven out, and their cattle ran wild. By the time of the Civil War, herds of wild longhorns roamed the Texas ranges. As the population of the United States grew and the railroads pushed into the trans-Mississippi region, the cattle industry became big business. Texas ranchers began rounding up the wild cattle and driving them to market over various trails, the best known of which probably is the Chisholm Trail. Ranching soon spread to other western states clear to the Canadian border. The decades following the Civil War were the golden age of the cowboy.