The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 417
692 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Blzzard of 1886
boys, and cattle. Public lands were available for grazing and, in winter,
cattle required neither supplemental feed nor shelter. Production costs
were low, profit margins were high. The cattle had only to be rounded
up, driven to the nearest railhead, and shipped to markets in Kansas
City, St. Louis, or Chicago.'
By 188o the range cattle industry entered a boom phase in its devel-
opment. Improvements in refrigeration and shipping provided access
to international markets and led to steadily rising prices for western
beef. By 1882 prices achieved levels "rarely before reached in the his-
tory of the trade." Range cattle that sold at seven dollars a head only a
few years before now brought twenty-five dollars. At the same time
cattle companies were being formed at an accelerating rate and, within
a few years, forty to fifty million dollars were invested in the industry.
There was a widespread belief among many investors that "no other
business is so safe nor so profitable as cattle-raising in the Far West.""
The beef bonanza resulted in "a fever of excitement" that became
"almost a craze." Banks extended unlimited credit for investment in
cattle. "Heavy loans" were made to investors at monthly interest rates
of 1.5 or 2 percent. Large sums of money were entrusted to inex-
perienced or incompetent management. Herds were bought and sold
on book count, a procedure in which estimates were made of the num-
ber of cattle based on an assumed rate of natural increase, calves
branded, sales, and losses. This procedure expedited sales and was be-
lieved to be less stressful on cattle than an actual head count. In many
instances, however, the rate of increase was overestimated and the
losses were underestimated leading to "transactions ... in which thou-
sands of dollars changed hands over cattle herds which were purely
fictitious."
The boom in the cattle industry led to a rapid occupation of ranges
and, by 1885, the ranges were stocked beyond their capacity to sustain
the herds grazing on them. The increasingly speculative nature of the
5Edward Everett Dale, The Range Cattle Industy (Norman University of Oklahoma Press,
1930), 94; Herbert O. Brayer, "The Influence of British Capital on the Westei n Range Cattle
Industry," Joutnal of Economic llstory," IX (1949), 89, Tad Moses, "Development of the Cattle
Business in Texas," Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, z949-1950 (Dallas: A. H Belo,
1949), 258-259
bDale, The Range Cattle Industry, 90, 122-1 25; James Cox, IlItoirual and Biographical Record of
the Cattle Industry a'nd the Cattlemen of Texas and Adjacent Tei ritoiy (St. Louis: Woodward and Tier-
nan Publishing Co , 1895), 139 (1st quotation); H. R. Hilton, "Influence of Climate and Cli-
matic Change Upon the Cattle Industry of the Plains," in Report of the Kansas State Board of
Agricultue, Match 31, i888 ('lopeka: Kansas Publishing House, 1888), 144, Moses, "Develop-
ment of the Cattle Business in Texas," 265; Walter Baron von Richtholen, Cattle-Raistng on the
Plans of North America (New York: I). Appleton and Co , 1885), 98 (2nd quotation)
7Dale, The Range Cattle Indstry, 96 (1st and 2nd quotations), 97 (3rd quotation), 125,
Richard Graham, "The Investment Boom in British-'lexan Cattle Companies, 1880-1885,"
Burness slutory Review, XXXIV (Winter, 1960), 424-425, Paul I Wellman, The Tiampling IIed
(New York. J B. Lippincott Co , 1939), 301o (4th quotation).417
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991, periodical, 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101214/m1/481/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.