The public domain of the West and Southwest, owing to the vast areas of grazing land which cost the cattlemen nothing, became the controlling factor in the American cattle industry, reaching its climax about 1880.
Subsequently these great feeding grounds were invaded by the sheep-grower, whose flocks destroyed the pastures and drove out the cattle wherever they appeared.
The death knell of the national cattle range was sounded by the United States Government in throwing open the public lands to settlers.
During the romantic period of the cattle outfit—the cowboy with his bucking broncho, lariat and six-shooter—many of the important cities and towns of today came into existence as humble adjuncts of the live stock industry.
There are men living today who have witnessed the beginning, the rise, and almost the extinction, of the Western cattle range.
A complete revolution has been brought about in the cattle industry within a lifetime. The change has been a rapid one from the free range to the fenced pasture; the open ranges turned into farms and settlements.
With the advent of changed conditions, the rancher of restricted territory and reduced herds ceased to be an important factor in directly supplying the market, as he was forced to utilize the land that was not desirable for homesteaders, and the pasturage being insufficient to suitably fatten stock, he was compelled to ship his cattle to the feeders of the Middle West to prepare them for market.
Meanwhile, the Middle West, or corn-belt states, being unable to raise cattle in an economical way, developed into a feeding station, where young cattle from the Western ranges were shipped to be fattened and prepared for the market.
With the decrease of range cattle, year by year, fewer Western beeves reach the corn belt to be finished and made ready for market.
The early settlers of Southern Louisiana raised cattle after the fashion that prevailed on the plains of Texas; that is, great herds without care or attention of any kind increased and multiplied and were annually rounded up and marketed; the returns were virtually all profit, as the cattle found their sustenance entirely in the luxuriant natural pasturage.