CHISHOLM TRAIL IN SUMNER COUNTY
CHISHOLM TRAIL IN SUMNER COUNTY The Chisholm Trail probably began as a buffalo migration route, linking summer pastures in the Central Plains to winter pastures in Texas. American Indians followed the buffalo and shared the route with U.S. explorers, who mapped it in the 1850s. In 1865 Jesse Chisholm, for whom the trail was eventually named, drove 250 cattle over the trail to what is today Wichita. An estimated 5 million head followed the route into Kansas over the next 20 years.
Traffic became thick after 1867 when Joseph McCoy built a large stockyard on the Kansas Pacific Railroad at Abilene (140 miles north of here) --- the nearest shipping point to Texas. It took about three months to drive a herd from Texas to Abilene and cost roughly 75 cents a head. The same animals sold for 10 to 20 times that amount in Kansas City. In 1885 Kansas imposed quarantine on Texas cattle, which carried a deadly tick, and the cattle trails closed. By then Kansas had become a leader in the nation’s livestock industry.
Note: This sign was replaced in 2012.
I-35 (Kansas Turnpike), Sumner County
Milepost 26, Belle Plaine service area
Plaque via Kansas Historical Society, and is used with their permission. Full page