Marker Name: The Chisholm Trail in Sumner County
Marker Type: Rest Area
Marker text:
THE 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 US 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 about 75 cents a head. The same animals sold for 10mto 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.
Erected by the State of Kansas
Marker Location: Sumner
Year Marker Placed: 01/01/2011
Name of agency setting marker: Kansas Department of Transportation
Marker Web Address: [Web Link]
Official Marker Number: Not listed
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