Chisholm Trail: Driving the American West

During the first two decades after the Civil War, Texans drove herds north into Kansas and points beyond. In 1867, they began bringing them to Abilene, Kansas on the Chisholm Trail. As the frontier moved west, the railheads shifted to the southern Kansas towns of Newton and Wichita, as well as the western Kansas town of Ellsworth. Later, a branch of the Chisholm Trail, known as the Eastern Trail, forked into Dodge City.