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Lecture 6 was all about the development of the cattle kingdoms throughout the Great Plains. The open range notion was started by the Spanish and when the Civil War ended there was a huge demand for beef in the North. This demand caused a surplus of cattle in Texas with no way of getting it to the consumer in the North until a man named Joseph McCoy came up with the idea of herding the cattle north to the railroad in Kansas. Right away problems started when it was discovered that these southern longhorns carried cattle ticks which infected northern Angus cows with Texas fever. Also, railroad towns only wanted the cattle drives to come into their towns while they were developing. Once they used the enterprise to build up enough money they kicked the cattle drives out by enacting Herd Laws and Quarantine Lines.

Later it was found that the Northern Plains were actually great for wintering cattle. This caused many people to drive herds north and then set up shop in the North using open range. Pools and Associations were created to herd up all the cattle in the spring, sort out each rancher's cows and branding the calves.

Later a slack market caused a transition from open range to family ranching with barbed wire and herd laws. All the wolves and longhorn bulls were killed off and Angus or Herford bulls were brought in improve the quality of the beef. From here the Feed Lot Industry was developed in the 1960s and the meat packing plants started to sprout up to butcher the cattle in the west and send the processed meat East.

Last semester I had the fortune of taking a class from Dr. Strom while she was writing her book on cattle ticks and their effect on the cattle industry. It was really interesting to hear about the different ways the government tried to eradicate the ticks in the South so that they would no longer spread disease and kill Northern cattle. The Southern counties built big vats where cattle from all over the county were required to dip their cows in arsenic every so often. Sometimes the concentration would be off and it would cause the cow's hide to shrink and burst. It was amazing how angry some farmers became over these regulations and would go as far as blowing up the vats and, in some instances, kill USDA investigators who came around to find undipped cows.