The Outlet
by Andy Adams
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Torrance, California, United States
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About This Item
MP3 Audio CD. The Outlet
CHAPTER I. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN
"Well, gentlemen, if that is the best rate you can offer us, then we'll
drive the cattle. My boys have all been over the trail before, and your
figures are no inducement to ship as far as Red River. We are fully
aware of the nature of the country, but we can deliver the herds at
their destination for less than you ask us for shipping them one third
of the distance. No; we'll drive all the way."
The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties addressed
were the general freight agents of three railroad lines operating in
Texas. A conference had been agreed upon, and we had come in by train
from the ranch in Medina County to attend the meeting in San Antonio.
The railroad representatives were shrewd, affable gentlemen, and
presented an array of facts hard to overcome. They were well aware of
the obstacles to be encountered in the arid, western portion of the
state, and magnified every possibility into a stern reality. Unrolling
a large state map upon the table, around which the principals were
sitting, the agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail from
Buffalo Gap to Doan's Crossing on Red River. Producing what was declared
to be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed by
statistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran had
recently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants. The representative
of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when opportunity offered, enumerated
every disaster which had happened to any herd to the westward of his
line in the past five years. The factor of the International was equally
well posted.
CHAPTER I. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN
"Well, gentlemen, if that is the best rate you can offer us, then we'll
drive the cattle. My boys have all been over the trail before, and your
figures are no inducement to ship as far as Red River. We are fully
aware of the nature of the country, but we can deliver the herds at
their destination for less than you ask us for shipping them one third
of the distance. No; we'll drive all the way."
The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties addressed
were the general freight agents of three railroad lines operating in
Texas. A conference had been agreed upon, and we had come in by train
from the ranch in Medina County to attend the meeting in San Antonio.
The railroad representatives were shrewd, affable gentlemen, and
presented an array of facts hard to overcome. They were well aware of
the obstacles to be encountered in the arid, western portion of the
state, and magnified every possibility into a stern reality. Unrolling
a large state map upon the table, around which the principals were
sitting, the agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail from
Buffalo Gap to Doan's Crossing on Red River. Producing what was declared
to be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed by
statistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran had
recently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants. The representative
of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when opportunity offered, enumerated
every disaster which had happened to any herd to the westward of his
line in the past five years. The factor of the International was equally
well posted.
Synopsis
From the book:At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the surplus cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There had been numerous experiments in seeking an outlet, and there is authority for the statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. Eleven years later forty thousand head were sent to the mouth of Red River in Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and thence inland by rail. Fever resulted, and the experiment was never repeated. To the west of Texas stretched a forbidding desert, while on the other hand, nearly every drive to Louisiana resulted in financial disaster to the drover. The republic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it was likewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediately before and just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up in cattle between eastern points on Red River and Baxter Springs, in the southeast corner of Kansas. The route was perfectly feasible, being short and entirely within the reservations of the Choctaws and Chero-kees, civilized Indians. This was the only route to the north; for farther to the westward was the home of the buffalo and the unconquered, nomadic tribes. A writer on that day, Mr. Emerson Hough, an acceptable authority, says: "The civil war stopped almost all plans to market the range cattle, and the close of that war found the vast grazing lands of Texas fairly covered with millions of cattle which had no actual or determinate value. They were sorted and branded and herded after a fashion, but neither they nor their increase could be converted into anything but more cattle. The demand for a market became imperative."
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Details
- Bookseller
- IDB PRoductions
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 9781776765867
- Title
- The Outlet
- Author
- Andy Adams
- Format/Binding
- MP3 Audio CD
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 999
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