The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1915-10-22
BUILDER Of GREAT
T CATTLE TRAIL DEAD
Joseph M'Coy, Neighbor Of Alb.
raham Lincoln, Passes Out
In Kansas CITY
ASSOCIATED Press by Federal wireleuu.)

N--0-N~--
KANSAS CITY. Missouri. October
2O.-Joseph McCoy is dead lie ex.
pired at his home here yesterday after
short illness. Death was not unex-
Pected.
Mr.. Mccoy is the man who promoted
and laid out the famous cattle trail
leading from the great plains of Texas
to Abilene, station on the Union Pa.
cifc Railroad, in Kansas, over which,
during the decade following 1867, up,
wards of ten million head of cattle,
valued at $l50,O0O,0OO, were driven
lie was a neighbor of Abraham Lin.
coin in early life, having been born at
Springfield, IllnOis, Decer!ber 20, 1887.
Engaging in the drOver business, Nc
Coy, in the middle sixties, found it
difficult to secure supplies of beef eat
tie, end he finally made n trip through
the Tiddles west in an effort to solve
the problem. In Texas he found vast
herds, but no means of transportation.
The nea est railroad was Sedalia,
Missouri, Tud water rates on livestOck
were prOhlHitive. Surveying the sit
IatiOn Mccoy remarked, half iokingly,
to an acquaintance, "Why not make Il
summer drive up to that new line in
Kansas?' The suggestion raised a
laugh among the eattlemen.
Clinging to his idea, Mccoy returned
East and attempted to interest the
president of the Union Pacific, but
was told that his scheme was inpracti-
cable. He then went to the manager
of the Sedalia line, whose Office he was
asked to leave when his project be.
came known.
Nothing daunted, Mccoy vent out on
the line of the Union Pacific. then near
ing completion, and selected Abilene as
the northern terminus of the long trail
he selected to establish. The railroa
refusing to act, he built stoci'yarda
capable of holAng 5000 head of tattlc
and erected such crude buildings as BE-
thought would be needed.
At the head of a party of surveyors,
he proceeded to lay out and mark the
trail, leading south from Abilene
aTross the praries of Kansas, the then
Indian Territory, the Texas Panhandle
and into the center of that State
distance of nearly 1000 miles. On
the cattle plains he and his agents rode
from ranch to ranch in an effort to in
duce the owners to try the experiment,
of sending their herds north. During
1867 the first of the great migrations
took place, $4,000 head reaching Abb.
lene and being shipped thence to the
eastern markets. McCoy's cOmpensa.
ton ca We from small commission
which the railroad finally agreed to al
low him on each ear of cattle shipped
an arrangement which endured but n
short time.
Following 1867 and pending the
building of railroads into the cattle
country. the greatest movement of live,
stock ever known in history took place
over the Mccoy trail.
Mccoy engaged in business at Ali
lrne and became the fist mayor of tho
town, which was noted for its turbu
lencv. One of his official acts was the
appointment of "Wild Bill'' HickOx t.
the position Of marshal. Hickox, re
nowned as a frontiersman, is said to
have killed forty FIVE men at Abilene
in efforts to establish order.
Mccoy continued in the cattle busi
mesa almost to the end of his life, ms
interests being centercd at wichita
Kansas, for many years. In 1874 h.
published book entitled "IIistoto
Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the
West and Southwest.