Plains Folk: “Scottish Drovers and American Cowboys”
I’ve been writing about Scottish cattle the last couple of columns, and I’ll continue with that theme this time, too, today writing about delivering cattle to market in the early stages of the cattle industry both there and in our country as well. In the big movement of cattle in both countries, cattle had to transport themselves, walking overland from Texas hundreds of miles to reach the cattle towns in Kansas first, then later Nebraska, before trains took them on to packing plants in Kansas City, Omaha, and Chicago. Before the trail drives ended the cattle walked themselves all the way to the range country of Wyoming, Montana, and even Canada. In Scotland the early cattle markets (trysts, as they were called there) were more south-centrally located, such as the one in Amulrie. Later the trysts moved south, first to Crieff, and finally to Falmouth. From there herds would be put together to drive to the pastures of north and central England to put on weight before going to London’s Smithfield market, just as Texas cattle for the same reason were often pastured on the short, mid, or tallgrass of Kansas and the central plains before being sold in Abilene or Wichita or even wintered over.
