Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Map of major cattle trails between 1866-1890. The first large-scale effort to drive cattle from Texas to the nearest railhead for shipment to Chicago occurred in 1866, when many Texas ranchers banded together to drive their cattle to the closest point that railroad tracks reached, which at that time was Sedalia, Missouri.
Stockyards mostly handled cattle and pigs for beef and pork production, but occasionally served as waystations for other animals. For example, around 1934 a dozen American bison from Colorado headed for Santa Catalina Island were held at the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards before boarding the ferry for their final leg of the trip.
Cowboys were hired to gather, drive, and hold cattle at major buying stations. Cowboys reported route trail fatalities of about 3%. As the railroads expanded, processors multiplied and refrigeration technology developed, the refrigerated rail car was patented in 1867. The need to drive cattle ended and the cattle drive trail disappeared by 1889.
Union Stock Yards, Chicago, 1947. The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a centralized processing area.
Map of major cattle trails, with the Great Western Trail in the center. The Great Western Cattle Trail is the name used today for a cattle trail established during the late 19th century for moving beef stock and horses to markets in eastern and northern states.
A cattle wagon or a livestock wagon is a type of railway vehicle designed to carry livestock.Within the classification system of the International Union of Railways they fall under Class H - special covered wagons - which, in turn are part of the group of covered goods wagons, although cattle have historically also been transported in open goods wagons.
Railway towns are particularly abundant in the midwest and western states, and the railroad has been credited as a major force in the economic and geographic development of the country. [1] Historians credit the railroad system for the country's vast development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as having helped facilitate a ...
And railroads were safer: the likelihood of a train crash was less than the likelihood of a boat sinking. The railroads provided cost-effective transportation because they allowed shippers to have a smaller inventory of goods, which reduced storage costs during winter, and to avoid insurance costs from the risk of losing goods during transit. [39]