The Chisholm Trail

Description

Author: Gard, Wayne  (1899-1986)

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Pub Date: 1984 (Eighth printing)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, folds.  Lower front cover corner has an approx. 1/4″ bend.  Verso edge rear cover has an approx. 1″ bend, with small tears at each end.  Those defects are causing more wear along that verso edge.  Smudging to bottom text block.   Edge and corner wear.

Notes:  If you thought Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” sprang whole-cloth into being, you haven’t read Gard’s “Chisholm Trail.”  Lots of cattle and nowhere to sell them.  Why wait for the railroad to come to us?  Let’s take the cattle to the railroad.  And thus, the Chisholm Trail (named for Jesse Chisholm {c. 1805/6-1868}) was born.   “The main stem of the Chisholm Trail, which had many feeder lines coming in from both sides, began near the southern tip of Texas.  It led through or past San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth and entered the Indian Territory–now Oklahoma–at Red River Station.  Its route through the Indian country, which then had few white inhabitants, is now marked roughly by a line of cities and towns.  They include Duncan, Chickasha, El Reno, Kingfisher, Enid, Pond Creek, and Medford.  The first terminus of the trail was Abilene, Kansas.  Beginning in 1872, Ellsworth and Wichita were the principle cattle market for several years.  Then they gave way to Dodge City and Caldwell.”  (From the Foreword)  Ramon F. Adams, in “The Rampaging Herd” (University of Oklahoma Press, 1959, #875, p. 139) says “Not the first history of this famous cattle trail, but one of the best.”