Abstract

Innovation and opportunity often are derived from necessity. This is the case with postbellum Texas cattle producers. These producers returned from the war to discover that they had a cattle surplus. This surplus was well above the local demand while other parts of the country were industrializing and had a taste for beef and the means to afford it. This study examines the economics that drove the cattle movement between 1865 and 1900.

Post War Population Changes and Beef Demand

Food production and economics are often directly tied to shifts in population demographics and income. The Postbellum era is an excellent case study of economic principles in many ways. One such example of this is the supply and demand of beef in the United States. Cattle were first taken into Texas commercially in 1714 and became an important part of the economy of the South West.[1] Following the Civil War the population of Texas was between 60 and 80 thousand.[2] Though the population of cattle had grown to about 5 million head[3] that needed to be sold. In comparison there was an economic boom in the north with more people who had money to spend. The value of cattle in Texas was minimal, but nationally the prices were being driven up by demand. Between the 1880s and 1900 the price of cattle rose by 73 percent.[4] By 1900, the population of Texas had grown to over three million.[5]

This shift is depicted in the 1948 film titled Red River which cast John Wayne as Thomas Dunson, a Texas cattle producer determined to get his cattle to market on the Chisholm Trail, eventually arriving at a rail location where the cattle could be sold and shipped east. Demand for these cattle was primarily in the “Carolinas, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.”[6] In addition, there are numerous works on this topic in every venue including fiction, non-fiction, official government archives, and statistical records. On one hand the shift in economic circumstances of postbellum Texas is simply supply and demand, while it has also become the stuff of mythologized and romanticized legend and myth. This brings up the problem of studying this era and topic in history using fact-based material without losing the aura of the story in its construction. Population graphs and cattle prices do not tell the entire story. However, the demographical data, income statistics, and historical records of cattle prices do support much of the story. An example of this is found in non-farm and skilled labor income shifting by 27% and 38% respectively.[7]

There is a clear division between historical circumstances between the postbellum north and that of Texas. Following the war Texans found the local markets for Beef to be satiated and the residents to be cash poor. This demonstrates how in the past the lack of transportation could impact a local market. This same effect still exists within the livestock trade when a local market finds reasons to either need local cattle or the local demand decreases. Today this is often seasonal and weather dependent. Rain and good feed mean local cattle prices increase until the conditions change.

As transportation options opened up following the need to move cattle to other locations the population demographics began to change. The population of Texas by 1900 nearly doubled while the US population grew by about 25%.[8] Innovation led to optimism and opportunity in the west.

Bibliography

Journals

Love, M. Clara. “History of the Cattle Industry in the Southwest,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 19 no. 4 (1916), 371.

Skaggs, Jimmy M., “Cattle Trailing,” Texas State Historical Association: Handbook of Texas, (2020).

Archives

Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. “Chapter K: Agriculture.”

Lebergot, Stanley, Wage Trends 1800-1900, Bureau of the Budget, (1960): 487.

Nebraska Studies. The Civil War & Texas Beef. https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1850-1874/beef-moves-to-nebraska/the-civil-war-texas-beef/. Accessed 3/26/2022.

Texas State Library and Archive Commission, United States and Texas Populations 1850-2017, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/census.html. Accessed 3/26/2022.

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[1] Love, M. Clara. “History of the Cattle Industry in the Southwest,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 19 no. 4 (1916), 371.

[2] Texas State Library and Archive Commission, United States and Texas Populations 1850-2017, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/census.html. Accessed 3/26/2022.

[3] Nebraska Studies. The Civil War & Texas Beef. https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1850-1874/beef-moves-to-nebraska/the-civil-war-texas-beef/. Accessed 3/26/2022.

[4] Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. “Chapter K: Agriculture.”

[5] Texas State Library and Archive Commission, United States and Texas Populations 1850-2017, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/census.html. Accessed 3/26/2022.

[6] Skaggs, Jimmy M., “Cattle Trailing,” Texas State Historical Association: Handbook of Texas, (2020).

[7] Lebergot, Stanley, Wage Trends 1800-1900, Bureau of the Budget, (1960): 487.

[8] Texas State Library and Archive Commission, United States and Texas Populations 1850-2017, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/census.html. Accessed 3/26/2022.