Ch 14 Sect 1-#15



14.1 - End of Open Range in Texas - 1870 – 1890

READ pgs 328-335

Timeline:

1870 – Market develops for cottonseed oil

1872 – 100,000 immigrants settle in Texas

1876 – Santa Anna dies in June (FINALLY!) ( 2-21-1794 / 6-21-1876 )

1877 – Railroad strike cripples transportation in U.S.

1880 – Drought hits Texas

1883 – Range war erupts

1885 – Big “Die-up” destroys entire herds of cattle

1890 – Railroad at Fort Worth becomes collection point for Texas cattle

Main Idea:

Railroads, population growth, barbed wire, and other developments caused the end of the open-range cattle ranching.

Vocabulary:

open range – vast area of undeveloped public land held by the state

government for future sale

internal improvements – changes made by people, such as building of roads,

to help boost a regions economy and population

strike – work stoppage to force an employer to meet certain demands

Setting the Scene:

The 1880s were a decade of drastic change for Texas. The days of the cattle kingdoms ended as fences sprang up to enclose what had once been wide-open spaces. Cowboys were unhappy over the loss of their traditional way of life in song:

“They say that heaven is a free range land,

Goodbye, goodbye, O fare you well;

But it’s barbed wire for the devil’s hat band;

And barbed wire blankets…”

“The trail’s a lane, the trail’s a lane,

Dead is the branding fire.

The prairies wild are tame and mild,

All close corralled with wire”.

Ranching on the Open Range

• West Texas ranches differed from South Texas ranches like the King Ranch.

• South Texas ranchers owned their land

• the first West Texas ranchers owned little or no land

• their cattle grazed on the open range

• the open range was undeveloped public land held by the state government for future sale

• the ranchers found a good location and “squatted” there until someone bought the land

• since there were no fences, cattle from several ranches often intermingled

• to identify their own cattle, ranchers marked their animals with a brand

• Ranchers on the open range considered the water and grass to be resources that everyone could share

Changes on the Open Range

Land Policies

• in the 1850s, the state government began offering free public land to encourage internal improvements. Those are changes that help boost the economy and population

• Railroads received almost 90 percent of this land

• Railroads sold much of the land to recover the cost of laying track

• Railroads needed people all along the line to ride and ship products

• in 1874, Texas offered public land near railroad lines for $1.50 an acre

• by 1879, the price fell to $1 an acre near the tract and $.50 for other land

• State Land Board was created to sell land to poor settlers

• buyers could take up to 40 years to pay for the land

Land and cattle companies

• open-range ranchers began to buy up land right away, before someone else did

• Ranchers got help from investors in the Eastern U.S. and Great Britain so they could buy or lease land on the open range

• huge privately owned ranches soon developed

• one example was the JA Ranch managed by Charles Goodnight but owned by John Adair of Great Britain

• large ranches controlled by British investors dominated the Panhandle

| | |

|Range Wars |[pic] |

|Ranchers began fencing in their land in the 1880s | |

|some big ranchers’ fences blocked water supplies and public roads. | |

|conflicts between ranchers and sheepherders worsened | |

|angry small farmers began cutting the fences | |

|a “range war” developed over the issues of fences and fence cutting. | |

|Legislature made it illegal to cut fences | |

An End and a Beginning

• The end of the open range due to barbed wire and the expansion of the railroad brought an end to cattle drives

• people in the East demanding better types of beef

• Texas had to start competing with Wyoming and Montana who had better breeds

• Texas beef market headed into a long period of decline

|Changes For Cowboys |The Big Die-Up |

|Cowboys found fewer jobs. There were now fewer long trail drives or |in 1885, thousands of cattle froze to death trying to flee a huge blizzard |

|open-range roundups |they were trapped by drift fences that ranchers had put up to keep infected |

|Cowboys’ new responsibilities included setting fence posts and stringing |cattle away from the healthy herds |

|barbed wire |the Big Die-Up nearly wiped out the herds in the Panhandle |

|in 1883, Texas Rangers broke a strike by Panhandle cowboys |some lost up to 75% of their herd |

|a strike is a work stoppage to force an employer to meet certain demands |Ranchers lost everything between the severe winters and summer droughts |

|the failure of the strikers showed that changes in ranching were permanent |some British investors sold their land |

| |read excerpt below…. |

They moved "like grey ghosts . . . [with] icicles hanging from their muzzles, eyes, and ears," toward the Texas Panhandle, and directly into the fences. There they were stalled; they could not go forward, and they would not go back. They stood stacked together against the wire, without food, water, warmth or shelter. They pressed close against each other in groups all along the fence line, and sometimes they gathered in bunches reaching as much as four hundred yards back from the fence. Still there was not enough warmth in their huddled forms to counteract the cold, and within a short time they either smothered or froze in their tracks.

Modern Ranching Begins

• the Big Die-up marked the start of the modern ranching industry in Texas

• Cattlemen began to manage their herd by fencing off pastures

• pastures made efficient use of the land and improved the quality of the herds

• new types of cattle, Angus and Herefords replaced the lean longhorns

• several new breeds of cattle resulted that could produce more meat and resist heat and Texas Fever

1. What caused the death of the cattle in the Big Die-Up?

A. they were all slaughtered for food

B. they froze to death because they were trapped by drift fences

C. they starved to death because they couldn’t eat on the open range

D. they all died from disease and drought

2. What is a strike designed to do?

A. drive up the cost of production

B. temporarily end work so workers can get a rest

C. force an employer to meet certain demands

D. create a friendly work atmosphere

3. How did Texas land policies affect the open range ?

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4. What events led to the range wars of the late 1800s ?

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5. What changes did ranchers make in the way they raised cattle after the Big

Die-Up ?

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