The Chisholm Trail: Joseph McCoy's Great Gamble (Volume 3) (Public Lands History)

Excellent book, hardback. Fast shipping, highly recommend seller.

Oh, for . . . ! Really, previous reviewer? There aren't enough books already about life on the cattle trails, violence in the cow towns, Wild Bill Hickok's eleventh gunfight in Abilene, Wyatt Earp's mustache? Like this topic hasn't been worked to death by True West magazines, bad fiction writers, and Cold War-era screenwriters?If you want to know about the daily life of a cowboy, then or now, take it from someone who's alternated between wins and losses in the cattle business: You worry every day about rainfall and grass, too little of which means a desperate search for new ranges, too much of which means you tend to sick cattle standing in moldy pastures. You fret constantly about what domestic and international markets--yes, in places as far away as London--are doing to the value of your investment. You follow intently the latest technology, like refrigeration, or changes in infrastructure, like a railroad or blacktop highway, or the fickle tastes of consumers--all of which mean success or failure for your fragile little enterprise. This is not the "exciting" stuff of western myth, like fighting rustlers or visiting Miss Kitty's brothel, which entices readers in search of entertainment, but it is the stark reality of ranching on the Great Plains.Try a different kind of book. Sherow's achievement here is his casting of Joseph McCoy as a true entrepreneur, someone who weaved a trail through all of those risks to transform the entire livestock industry, and in so doing, transformed America's eating habits. Where others saw in prairies around Abilene a flat, monotonous landscape (much like outsiders see Kansas today), McCoy saw a golden opportunity. To understand that accomplishment requires a grounding in ecology, economics, agronomy, animal husbandry, and politics--fields that McCoy understood well, as would any good stockman living now. This author is clearly less interested in selling books by repeating stories that have been told repeatedly elsewhere. He is more interested in helping readers understand the enormous risks that the Chisholm Trail imposed on the men who blazed its path--exactly as the subtitle "McCoy's Great Gamble" promises.If you are tired of western histories that offer no relevance for anyone outside of the usual buffs, and want to know how the Chisholm Trail and the cattle drives fit within the larger scope of US and world history, this is for you. If it is the romance, nostalgia, exaggerations, and outright lies of "the Old West" that attract you, well, you're on amazon, partner, and there should be a whole passel of recommendations down there at the bottom of your screen

Well researched and written with just the right amount of details. There’s a lot to cover in this important part of American History and the author has such a wonderful writing style that makes it hard to put the book down.

Then read this book! Here's a summary to entice you: The growth of the large cities on the East Coast during the 1860s led to a demand for beef that could not be satisfied solely with the cattle raised there.The book's subject, Joseph McCoy, envisioned a system that would bring Texas cattle to New York butchers while making a sizable profit. The key was creating the system to deliver the cattle while using the natural resources of the prairie grasslands along the way.Together with his older brothers William and James, McCoy developed a system to deliver Texas Longhorns to the East Coast, transforming the farm land and economy. That system put all the critical pieces together—telegraph, rail transport, hotel, and cattle pens—and did so away from the heart of the city, where driving herds through town was both dangerous and messy.And where was this system developed? Abilene, KS, which “offered the sine qua non for linking together into one gigantic system the rapidly growing national and international beef markets, millions of cattle in Texas, the ecology of the open grasslands in the public domain, and the technological advances in railroads and shipping.” (The Chisholm Trail, p. 32). The McCoy brothers built their stock yard in Abilene in 1867 and began shipping cattle by rail car later that year.McCoy’s fortunes as a stockman would ebb and flow over the years as he dealt with ticks, drought, blizzards, and farmers, who closed off the open prairie land where the cattle grazed. He moved on from Abilene to Wichita,establishing the cattle trade there. McCoy died in 1915 and is buried in Wichita with his wife Sarah.I read the book from cover to cover in less than a week. It is a Chisholm Trail story like no other supported with meticulously researched details. Most of all, it is a very human story about one man's seemingly impossible dream and what it took to see it through.