Chapter 7: Into the West "The Chisholm Trail"

Introduction
Students have read about western expansion and the challenges it presented to the young nation. They have learned about the great cattle drives and the economic impact of settling the West. In this lesson, students will take a closer look at the Chisholm Trail.

Lesson Description
Students will visit the Web site of the Red River Authority of Texas to learn about cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail. Students will explore the route followed and will discover the reasons behind the origin and decline of the trail. They will answer four questions about what they learned.

Instructional Objectives
1. Students will be able to explain the magnitude of the great cattle drives and their impact on the economy.
2. Students will be able to trace the emergence and decline of the cattle drives.

Student Web Activity Answers
1. Texas fever was a highly contagious and often deadly cattle disease that resulted in laws banning Texas cattle in Missouri and Kansas.
2. The original tracks on what would become the Chisholm Trail were made by Scot-Cherokee Jesse Chisholm, who in 1864 began hauling trade goods to Indian camps about 220 miles south of his post near modern Wichita. The first cattle herd to follow this trail belonged to O.W. Wheeler and his partners. In 1867 at the North Canadian River in Indian Territory they saw Chisholm’s wagon tracks and followed them.
3. The cattle were permitted to graze along for 10 or 12 miles per day and were never pushed except when they needed to reach water. The reason for this mild treatment was that cattle that ate and drank their fill were unlikely to stampede.
4. The Chisholm Trail was closed by the emergence of barbed wire fencing and an 1885 Kansas quarantine law.

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