At the same time, wild herds of longhorn cattle in Texas had been left unattended and had grown and multiplied into millions. The supply was in central and southern Texas while the demand was in the east.
There had to be a solution, and Joseph McCoy found it. He built cattle pens at the railroad in Abilene, Kansas, and sent a crew of surveyors to find the shortest route to the herds waiting in the south.
There was already a wagon trail from Wichita south through indian territory to the North Canadian river where a man named Jesse Chisholm had a trading post. He had created this 200 mile trail to move and sell his goods,
From his post the surveyors moved south to the Red River and into Texas and the Chisholm Trail was born.
The ranchers in Texas were soon moving their herds,. numbering millions, across the prairie with the expectation of large profits from what had been a unmarketable product untill the trail was opened.
It required a special kind of man to undertake this venture. He would have to be rugged and strong... and he would have to be brave. He would be facing the possibilities of stampedes, storms, prairie rattlers, dangerous river crossings and many other hazards along the way. There would be no comfort of a roof to shelter him from the elements, no bed to rest his weary bones, and no loving wife to provide hot meals and clean clothes.... and the men who fit this description gave birth to the legend of the American cowboy.
When the trail passed out of indian territory into Kansas, the first town in its path was Caldwell. And that is where Silas and Rachel lived with their young sons! What an exciting adventure that must have been for them.
By the time the Cherokee Strip was opened for settlement, the trail drives were dying out; and after the run, the barbed wire fences of the homesteaders stopped them completely.
Portions of the rutted trail can still be seen today from the sky. Aerial photographs clearly mark the path where the farmers' plows have not erased it forever. It has been permanently marked as a historical point of interest, and if you should decide that you would like to see the land that Silas Newland homesteaded, you can also see where the cowboys drove those cattle all that distance. It runs directly through Grant Co. OK.,
Osie, wife Of Jim, Nellie, wife of Charley.
L. TO R. MABLE CHARLOTTE NEWLAND ANTHONY
CLARENCE NEWLAND,
OPAL ANDERSON NEWLAND SCHMIDT
