The crew also included a trail boss, a cook, who drove a chuck wagon, and a horse wrangler to take charge of the spare horses.
These men worked in shifts to watch the cattle 24 hours a day, herding them in the daytime and watching them at night to prevent stampedes and theft. Usually, the cattle were taken shorter distances each day and allowed to rest and graze at midday and night.Ī crew of at least ten cowboys was needed to herd the cattle, with three horses per cowboy. If the cattle were skillfully managed, they could gain weight along the trail.ĭrovers learned the best size herd to move over long distances was 2,500-3,000 head, which moved slowly to avoid a stampede. Though the cattle could be driven as far as 25 miles in a single day, they would lose too much weight and be hard to sell when they reached the end of the trail. Moving 10-12 miles a day, a typical cattle drive would take about two months to travel from South Texas to Kansas. By 1879, it would become one of the most traveled and famous cattle trails in U.S. Army successfully concluded the Red River War, which drove the Comanche and Kiowa onto reservations, Lytle’s Trail became the most popular path to the railheads in Kansas and Nebraska. The road began in the hill country of Kerrville, Texas, and ran west of and roughly parallel to the Chisholm Trail into Kansas. Lytle, who was transporting 3,500 longhorn cattle from the grazing ranges of Texas to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, blazed the trail.