The Way West

Fully 600,000 head of Texas cattle were driven up the long trail to Kansas in 1871. The season had been a rainy one. Early good grazing turned to washed-out grass with little nutrition.

Unlike previous years on the plains the cattle lost weight. Buyers weren’t interested in the poorly conditioned cattle. To make matters worse, severe storms had resulted in numerous stampedes, wearing out both man and beast.

Three hundred thousand head of cattle were unsold at the end of the season. Drovers chose to hold their cattle on the buffalo-grass range of western Kansas and Eastern Colorado. Some drove north to the river bottoms of the Platte and Republican rivers.

Ellsworth reported that 80,000 head of cattle were being prepared to winter over in Ellsworth County.

In November a severe rainstorm set in, followed by a cold wind that froze the water. The grass became covered with a sheet of ice two or three inches thick. A furious gale blew for three days and nights. From that time forward a series of winter storms blew across the plains sometimes catching travelers in the open.

In north-central Kansas four men went west from White Rock Creek for a buffalo hunt in present-day Smith County. When the storm hit, three of four hunters rode the mules into the storm hoping to make it to a settlement and save their lives. One man chose to stay with the wagon.

Although the Nebraska border was not far to the north, the settlements were out of reach. The hunters and their mules were found frozen to death approximately 10 miles southwest of Red Cloud, Neb.

The hunter that stayed with the wagon was found barely alive. He was tenderly taken back to Red Cloud where it was found necessary to amputate his feet to save his life.

Red Cloud had been settled just 16 months earlier. Settlers began to come into the Republican Valley in the spring of 1870. A stockade was built for protection across the Republican River from a prominent sentinel known as Guide Rock.

A few months later a second stockade (Red Cloud) was established about 10 miles west of the Guide Rock stockade. Although originally referred to as the upper stockade and the lower stockade, the stockades were the beginnings of the towns of Guide Rock (upper) and Red Cloud (lower).

A third stockade at Elm Creek was built about half way between the two in the spring of 1871.

Supplies for these farflung communities were delivered by wagon train from Beatrice, Neb., 100 miles east of Red Cloud.

The Republican Valley had been a favorite homeland of the Cheyenne and Sioux and although they had retired “toward the setting sun,” there was great fear they would return to their traditional hunting grounds.

Finding the remains of three hunters a half-mile east of Red Cloud caused much concern for safety, even though it was determined that the men had been killed several years before settlement.

For the most part the Republican River Valley settlers passed the winter of 1871-72 in relative comfort. Wild game was plentiful, providing plenty to eat. Buffalo were so easily found that extended hunts were not necessary. Social gatherings were held to keep spirits light. A literary society “of considerable merit” was even conducted at the Red Cloud stockade.

Texas cattlemen who turned their longhorns loose to winter on the prairie didn’t fare so well. About 6,000 head of longhorns were brought into the Republican Valley in the fall of 1871. The ice- and snow-covered range of that cruel winter deprived the cattle of life-preserving forage. Barely 1,200 head were still alive by spring. Weakened by the long winter, even the surviving cattle were little more than carcasses draped over bones.

The only value that could be recovered from the dead cattle was in the hides that remained relatively sound through the frozen months. The hide was cut around the neck, down the breast along the belly, and down the inside of each leg. Then a log chain was attached at the top of the neck, and hooked to a wagon. By urging the team forward the hide was methodically “drawn off the carcass”. In this way settlers made extra money retrieving the hides for the dispirited Texas drovers.

Cattlemen who had left Texas with visions of impending wealth in the spring of 1871 instead suffered great loss during the winter of 1871-72. An estimated quarter of a million head of cattle were lost on the plains that punishing winter of death and devastation on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st RD Geneseo, Kan. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.