Giddy-up, cowboys and girls! In the Southwest during early half of the 1800s, cows were only worth 2 or 3 dollars apiece. They r
oamed wild, grazed off the open range, and were abundant. Midway through the century though, railroads were built, and the nation was connected. People in the Southwest could suddenly ship cows in freight trains to the Northeast. The Yankees there had a growing taste for beef and were willing to pay for it. Out of the blue, the same cows that were once worth a couple of bucks were now worth between twenty and forty dollars each. The only problem was that they had to get these cows to the train station. A new profession emerged from this. It became lucrative to wrangle up a drove of cattle and herd them to the nearest train town. Of course, it was dangerous too. Cowboys were threatened at every turn. They faced cattle rustlers, stampedes and extreme weather. But they kept pushing those steers to the train station. By the turn of the century, barbed wire killed the open range. Some may say the cowboy, too, was killed by barbed wire. Maybe, but it was the train that birthed them. Can someone help me get the main idea?
