Texas Trails Museums

Texas Trails Museum

 

      In Pine Bluffs, Wyoming is the Texas Trails Museum. It might seem a little out of place, however, there is a reason . . . a story here. At the end of the Civil War, the transcontinental railroad was being built across our country. The ability to transport goods across the country opened up many opportunities for a variety of businesses.  Meat packing houses were being opened in Chicago & Cincinnati and cattle shipping facilities in Abilene, Kansas. Soon centers for shipping cattle opened in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and so on. Texans returning home after the war found opportunities to work driving cattle to market as well as an estimated 5,000,000 Longhorn cattle wandering the Texas plains. Much of the legends and mystic of the American Cowboys were born during this era.

      Cattle trails out of Texas abounded: the Chisholm trail, the Chihuahua Trail, the Goodnight Loving trail and others. During this same period discoveries of gold & silver in Virginia City, Nevada and in the Wyoming territories drove up the price & demand for cattle. Hence the Texas/Wyoming connection for cattle and the Texas Trails.

     Kathleen & I had read that this museum would be closed before we arrived in  Pine Bluffs,Wyoming and had more or less forgotten about it. On our search for parts of the Lincoln Highway that day (and my thoughts of finding something to eat) we ventured into Pine Bluffs and just happened to see the museum--so we decided to take a few pictures of the outside of the buildings--but lo & behold a couple drove up & asked us if we would like to see the museum--Max and Pat. They are permanent members of the Museum & do repairs and painting there. Anyway, we were delighted to get to see the museum when we thought that all bets were off!

 

 

 

http://www.wyohistory.org/essays/wyoming-cattle-boom

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Texas+cattle+trails+to+Wyoming&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drives_in_the_United_States