Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-24

ALDWELL, Dodge City, Abilene
II The cattle trail doesn't make any
ediderence-the cowboy chanty
goes for any of them, especially
- out in the cow-trail country
where the cattleman is making his
last stand. The railroads cut up his immense
ranges, the wheat farmers knocked the wad-
ding out of his profession and legislatures
have ended his free range, but, by hickory,
they can't take away his history.
In the next few years the tourist who goes
into the American West to meet the last
frontier, what is left of it, will find the old
cattle trails wearing markers and historically
as "highbrow" as the old Santa Fe trail,
which claims to be the granddaddy Of all the
trails in the cattle country.
The cattle trails which forged a link
between the Southwest of Kit Carson and the
Middle West of the packing house magnates in
their heyday were important as the rail-
roads The Goodnight, the Chishold trails
and others which sprawled over century-old
buffalo trails from the grazing lands in the
Panhandle brought q new era Of business to
the Middle Western country. Before railroads
stretched into the Texas lands the millions
Of cattle were driven overland, and this period
has given more glamour to the Southwest than
any other time.
FIRST the trail terminus was Caldwell, Kans.
] Then the Union Pacific built as far as
Abilene, and great herds of longhorns plowed
market was the prize, and the long days in the
saddle didn't halt the business. Then the
Santa Fe built to Dodge City, and the trails
from Texas swerved westward
The Oklahoma Legislature has been asked
to appropriate a fund to mark the old CHS
holm trail If the exact route ever can be de-
termined. What few trail drivers remain
don't agree on the routes of the old trails, and
If a visitor in Texas, Oklahoma or Western
Kansas desires to renew the Civil War; all he
has to do Is to say that certain trail went by
such and such town. p p. Ackley of Elk
City, Okla, believes the best way to mark an
old cattle trail Is to run highway over it.
Ackley once Travelled the Chisholm trail on
o COW pony. In the last year he has travelled
1t in q fivver. He stopped In each town to
ask the mayor to persuade his councilmen to
donate to the marker fund. Ackley's idea is
the same as that of every old-timer who has
witnessed the passing Of the Ionghorns and the
rapid disappearance of cowboy history into
oblivion.
We'll be too late if we wait longer" Ac6ley
said. I'm many places the old trail Is almost
eroded We should have the highway run ap-
proxirnately over the same route as the old
trails and in many stretches we can take the
same road" Ackley is basked by the Old
Trail Drivers Association of Texas and other
groups.
The old Chisholm trail is one of the most
historic in America and provocative of more
argument among old cattlemen than who
the war among doughboys.
Running the big herds 10 market over the
Chisholm trail was big business in the South
west . few years after the Civil War. Many
Of the cowmen who had come west on Greeley's
advice joined up with the rollicking range
riders, made the long drives, married prairie
girl, and so or go years later almost pop out
Of their chairs when the local newspaper refers
to them rs pioneers and conquerors Of an
empire.
''The cattle are coming" in early day Dodge