From Prairie Chickens to J-Hawkers: Unraveling the Adventures of 19th Century Cowboys

Send us a textAs much as we like to romanticize cattle drives, they were more complicated than we imagined. Hours were long, food was monotonous, horses were bad, cattle were worse, and sleep was hard to come by. Yet, despite the hardships, many young men answered the call for trial hands during the second half of the 19th century. The allure of trailing thousands of cattle over wild lands and visiting far-off cattle towns like Abilene, Dodge City, and Ellsworth was too much to resist. Like m...