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The California hide trade was a trading system of various products based in cities along the California coastline, operating from the early 1820s to the mid-1840s. In exchange for hides and tallow from cattle owned by California ranchers, [ 1 ] sailors from around the globe, often representing corporations, swapped finished goods of all kinds.
The ranchers were faced with either the high expense of fencing large grazing tracts or selling their cattle at ruinous prices. [16] [17] By the 1890s, California was second in US wheat production, producing over one million tons of wheat per year, [14] but monocrop wheat farming had depleted the soil in some areas resulting in reduced crops. [18]
The few Californio ranchers already living in California initially prospered as the sudden increase in the demand for meat drove up the price paid for livestock. Prices zoomed from the about $2.00 they received for a hide to about $30.00-$40.00 per cow when sold for meat. Initially most of the Californios prospered.
The rising price of U.S.-produced meat, from cattle like those pictured here, comes after a long down slide and has been prompted in part by a classic case of supply and demand.
The Hearst Ranch is composed of two cattle ranches in central California. The best known is the original Hearst Ranch, which surrounds Hearst Castle and comprises about 80,000 acres (320 km 2 ). George Hearst (1820–1891) bought over 30,000 acres (120 km 2 ) of Rancho Piedra Blanca , an 1840 Mexican land grant, in the late 19th century.
After sailing up and down the California coast, Richard Henry Dana recorded on May 8, 1836 at his last stop in San Diego how the trade in cattle hides had overtaken the fur trade: "Our forty thousand [cattle] hides and thirty thousand horns, besides several barrels of otter and beaver skins, were all stowed below, and the hatches calked down."
The position starts at $36,587, and you’re going to need a couple of horses
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