AHC: lasting National Cattle Trail

The National Cattle Trail can eventually develop into a Buffalo Commons National Park?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1
In 1884, there was a giant cattle growers convention in St. Louis with the object of flexing their political muscle.

The Northwest ranchers wanted Congress to authorize long-term grazing leases on public land. The Southwest/Texas cattlemen wanted to establish a national cattle trail. The proposed trail would have extended from the Red River to the Canadian line, up to 6 miles wide in places and averaging about 3 miles wide. There would also be larger grazing grounds attached to it here and there. It would also be much narrower in places to allow for designated crossing points for railroads, roads, local cattle, etc.

At the time, the Northwest range was overstocked, so the Northwest ranchers opposed the national cattle trail. In return, the Southwest cattlemen refused to support the long-term grazing leases proposal. Nothing came of the convention. A Texas congressman introduced a national cattle trail bill, but with limited support, it never passed.

POD: Let's suppose that the convention gets over their political differences. Maybe a recent die off has occurred in the northern plains. They enthusiastically put their political weight behind a long-term grazing lease and national cattle trail bill.

Now, its not at all guaranteed to pass. The long-term grazing leases would not have been controversial, but OTL, the railroads were making noises in opposition to the national cattle trail, and likely you'd get some granger opposition too. Also, the proposed trail would have been expensive.

But its not impossible either. So lets say horsetrading happens in Congress, and the bill passes.

OTL the big cattle drive died off within a decade or so anyhow, partly because it became too difficult to find a good trail, but mostly because railroad shipping costs became low enough that they were a viable alternative.

OTL, the government did establish a cattle trail in NM during the 1930s on government land, but once the demand died off, a road was built on the strip and the rest of it just reverted to ordinary public land. But there was no law establishing the trail, so it was easy for the executive to just repurpose the land once demand died down.

Even so, the most likely fate of the national cattle trail is that sometime in the early 1900s Congress passes another bill abolishing it and returns it to ordinary public land status, including settlement, etc. The most likely fate is that the national cattle trail is a historical oddity without any lasting effects.

Alternate History Challenge: Here's your AHC. Figure out a way for the national cattle trail to have lasting effects. Bonus points if it eventually becomes the basis for a Buffalo Commons.

[Put in post-1900 because most of the work for the AHC is post-1900 changes.]
 
POD: Let's suppose that the convention gets over their political differences. Maybe a recent die off has occurred in the northern plains. They enthusiastically put their political weight behind a long-term grazing lease and national cattle trail bill.

1884 wasn't too far away from the disastrous years for cattle ranchers and other Plainsmen at the end of the 1880s, with several years of drought and extremely harsh winters that decimated the ranchers and the cattle population.
 
How do you think that would affect the POD?
I can see a renewed demand for cattle drives to help restock the northern range once the hard years are over. And given the times, my guess is that the cattle drives along the National Cattle Trail would be highly publicized and sensationalized. That might be enough to keep the trail in existence even once it stops being used. Thoughts?
 
OTL the big cattle drive died off within a decade or so anyhow, partly because it became too difficult to find a good trail, but mostly because railroad shipping costs became low enough that they were a viable alternative.

I think you already answered your own question. It become much cheaper and quicker to ship cattle via trains than a cattle drive. Transporting by train is a much less risky proposition for cattlemen; you don't have to worry about stampedes, sickness, cattle-rustling. Once you deliver the cattle to the local railhead they get paid and the responsibility is now on the railroad or the buyer.
 
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