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Show UNCOMMON AMERICANS o By ElmO ? Western Tr, Newsp.ipcr CTOff CltSOJl Union Father of the Cattle Trails IF IT had not been for Joseph G. McCoy, there might never have occurred that epic migration over the cattle trails from Texas to the north during the seventies and eighties. In that case the history of the Lone Star state and the whole West, for that matter might have been very different. McCoy, a native of Springfield, 111., was a stockman and cattle buyer who went to the raw little frontier town of Abilene, Kan., soon after the Civil war was over. That conflict had ruined the cattlemen cat-tlemen in Texas. Shut oil from the Northern markets by the Union control of the Mississippi river, their herds had increased enormously, enor-mously, but without a place to sell the animals, they were comparatively compar-atively worthless. Then the Kansas Kan-sas Pacific railroad, which was building west reached Abilene and McCoy was inspired with a wonderful wonder-ful idea. If he could get the Texas drovers to drive their herds north across Indian territory to Abilene, grazing them on the rich prairie grass as they came, Abilene would be the market place and shipping center where Texas sellers and Chicago and Kansas City buyers could meet. Despite many obstacles, Including In-cluding the prevalent belief that Texas beef was not as good as that grown in the Middle West, McCoy Mc-Coy went about the job of making his dream come true. In July, 1867, he began raising money to build a "shipping yard," a barn and office and to begin the construction of a large, three-story frame hotel for the accommodation of Texas drovers and eastern buyers. buy-ers. His next task was to get word to the cattlemen more than 400 miles away to the south. Although Al-though the time was short he managed man-aged to persuade enough of them to make the experiment so that they marketed 35,000 head of cattle in Abilene that fall and received approximately $15 a head for their steers. Previous to that time steers were selling for $5 a head in Texas. The next year more than 75,000 cattle were marketed there. By 1871 that number had jumped to 120,000 and by the next year to 236,000. From that time on Texas cattle poured north by the hundreds of thousands over the original cattle trail from the Red river to -Abilene and other trails which were laid out. Other Kansas "cow towns" began to boom with activity as the railroad was pushed farther west and southwest and there was added to our history that thrilling chapter chap-ter when the cattleman was king. And all of this was due to the vision of one man Joseph G. McCoy, the "Father of the Cattle Trails." Mr. Currier and Mr. Ives THEY gave Americans of their day the equivalent of the news reels of today. They were the pictorial pic-torial historians of contemporary American life a century ago when newspapers contained little or no picture material except an occasional oc-casional fashion print. When a steamboat blew up, a great fire swept a city or some other disaster occurred, Mr. Currier Cur-rier and Mr. Ives immediately put out a colored picture of the event with plenty of action in it. When the United States was at war, they issued splendid battle pictures with plumed generals on prancing horses (and plenty of gory detail as to dead and wounded soldiers). There were pictures of horse races and other sporting events, there were pictures of swift clipper ships and pictures of the first transcontinental trains running amidst Indians and buffalo. There were highly moral pictures there were even "comic strips" caricatures of life among the negroes, ne-groes, called "Darktown Comics." It all started back in 1830 vvhen young Nathaniel Currier, working as an apprentice to John Pendleton, Pendle-ton, who had returned from Europe with the new art of lithography, began be-gan thinking of setting up his own business. So he went to New York and started as a lithographer in partnership with a young man named Stoddard. This partnership lasted only a year but in 1835 Currier Cur-rier began again. He soon built up a profitable business but it wasn't until 1850 when James A. Ives became be-came his partner that fame and fortune came to them. For 30 years Mr. Currier and Mr. Ives were "printmakers to the American people" and Currier and Ivs prints of one sort or another were to be found on the walls of virtually every American home. In 1830 Currier retired with a fortune but the firm continued with a son of the founder in his place. In i33 machine color printing was applied ap-plied to their product and even greater numbers of their pictures flooded the country. In recent years Currier and Ives pi mis have become "Americana." Where once these prints sold from six cents to S3, they are now selling sell-ing for anywhere from $20 to S500. . ,nu one of them recently brought 53.000! |