Beef Moves to Nebraska
 4 of 7

Cattle Arrive in Nebraska

Some Texas Trails, Cow Towns, and Railheads


By 1868, Texas herds were reaching railheads in Sidney, Ogallala, and North Platte. Soon ranches sprang up, and the Nebraska cattle empire was born.

If cowboys thought the drive was rough, they were in for more when they arrived in Nebraska. Nat Love, an African American cowboy, described the atmosphere in Ogallala at the time.

Nat Love
Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
"Our route lay over the old Hays’ and Elsworth trail, one of the best known cattle trails in the west, then by way of Olga (sic, Ogallala), Nebraska, at that time a very small and also a very tough place. It was a rendezvous of the tough element and the bad men of the cow country."

Some Nebraska ranchers were quite crafty in their dealings with the Texas trail bosses. In this video, rancher John Maddox stands near the only remaining Artifact of the Texas Trail in order to tell the story of how the former owner of his land acquired cattle.