One of the most enduring images of the Old West is that of a great herd of Texas Longhorn cattle snaking its way north over the dusty Chisholm Trail to railroad stockyards at the end of the trail. Hundreds of thousands of cattle walked their way into oblivion, herded by leather-skinned, trailhardened cowboys whose names have been forgotten to all but a few disciples of trail history.

Movies and novels have recorded a version of that history, but all too often “tell the tale” with very little respect for reality. There were many cattle trails north, some of them famous and some have lapsed into the shadows, forever lost to time.

The famous Chisholm Trail had several branches leading to varying railheads. The Chisholm eventually gave way to the Western Trail, serving Dodge City, Ellis, Hays, Ogallala and points northward. Folks will tell you that the railheads moved west as the railroad built west, but in reality, the railroad was in Dodge City and Ellis long before they became railheads.

The real reason for the drift west was Texas cattle fever. As settlers moved west, Texas cattle were quarantined and not allowed to trail through the settlements. The westward shift continued until even Dodge City had to give up serving the trail herds.

The Kansas Legislature enacted a strict quarantine on March 7, 1885, closing the entire state to Texas trail cattle. Dodge City businessmen fought back with a plan to survey a “stock trail” through from the state line to Dodge City. That failed when settlers blocked the trail.

Corpus Christi cattleman Martin S. “Mart” Culver bossed the first herd to reach the Kansas border later that spring. Culver was met by a dozen mounted men well-armed with Winchester rifles in what became known as the “Winchester Quarantine.” Culver was informed that “he would find himself in a damp and remote recess of a Kansas jailhouse if he didn’t behave and obey quarantine.”

Culver surveyed the situation. His cowboys were ready to shoot their way through, but Culver realized the futility of fighting the whole state of Kansas. “Bend ‘em west, boys. Nothin’ in Kansas anyhow except the three suns, sunflowers, sunshine and suns-a-bitches!”

The trail outfit turned the herd west along Beaver Creek in today’s Oklahoma Panhandle. The trail herds that followed trailed Culver’s path, turning at the western border. From there, the rangy Texas cattle, having rounded the southwest corner of Kansas, were pointed north just inside the State of Colorado. Cowboys called the route the National Trail, and hoped the federal government would recognize the route as a national cattle highway from Texas to Montana.

Meantime, Mart Culver made plans to establish the new cattle town of Trail City, platted in Colorado just north of the trail crossing on the Arkansas River. Once over the river, trail herds crossed the tracks of the Santa Fe Railroad to enter Mart Culver’s Trail City. Travelers still pass through the location on Highway 50 west of Coolidge, just past the Kansas border.

Culver drew several Dodge City businessmen into the venture. Texas drover Print Olive invested in both a hotel and a livery business at the location. Trail City was about to become the new Cowboy Capital.

Culver joined with H. P. Myton, register of the Garden City Land Office, to sell town lots at $100-$150. In turn, Myton partnered with H. E. Wentworth to establish a lumberyard.

By July, 1885, 54,000 head of trail cattle had already marched up Trail Street, Trail City’s newborn main street, which just happened to be one and the same with the envisioned National Cattle Trail.

Trail City was so close to Kansas that the back doors of the business houses on the east side of Trail Street were just inside Colorado. Empty bottles of whiskey were tossed over the line into Kansas while trail drivers raised their glasses to Mart Culver, the founder of Trail City. The town soon acquired a reputation as the Arkansas Hell Hole.

Every pleasure that a cowboy desired was found in Trail City. Herds were often held up for days as cowboys tried their best to “have it all while they could.” Trail City seemed to be on the edge of the world, so much so that the sporting girls found little need to bother with clothes at all. Hurrahing the town took on new meaning as mounted cowboys raced up and down the streets, shooting and yelling, with unclad girls screaming in delight from the backs of trail-worn saddles.

But Trail City’s place in history was to be shortlived. The blizzard of 1886 devastated the southern plains cattle industry. The big outfits in Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas suffered the same fate a year later in the “Big Die Up” of 1887. Settlers swarmed over the cattle trail as Trail City dried up, only to become a footnote along a dimly traveled path chronicled by The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.