The long drive survived better railroad connections to Texas because going north turned out to have unanticipated advantages for cattle and cattlemen. When dealers held the longhorns until after the first hard freeze or overwintered them in Kansas, the cold killed the ticks, making the Texas cattle far less likely to infect domestic stock. Holding cattle on the central and northern Great Plains had a second, unplanned, advantage: they put on weight more quickly than they did in Texas. The industry became specialized, with Texas becoming a bovine nursery and the grasslands to the North a place
...more
