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N0KFQ > TODAY 04.03.16 17:07l 59 Lines 2636 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 86655_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 4
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Sent: 160304/1503Z 86655@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1868
Founder of Chisholm Trail dies
Jesse Chisholm, who blazed one of the West's most famous trails,
dies in Oklahoma of food poisoning.
Although the trail named for him later came to be one of the
major cattle-drive routes between Texas and Kansas, Jesse
Chisholm was a frontier trader, not a cattleman. Born in
Tennessee of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother, Chisholm
was among the early pioneers who moved west into what is now the
state of Arkansas. In his 20s, he joined a community of Cherokee
Indians in northwestern Arkansas and became a frontier trader.
His familiarity with both Anglo and Native American culture and
language (he could reportedly speak 14 different Indian dialects)
helped him build a thriving trade with the Osage, Wichita, Kiowa,
and Commanche.
Chisholm's knowledge of the Native Americans also made him useful
to government officials. The U.S. was eager to negotiate treaties
with the tribes in the region, and Chisholm served as a liaison
between tribal leaders and federal officials at several important
councils. Many Indian leaders trusted and respected Chisholm, and
he successfully negotiated for the release of numerous Anglo
captives taken by the Kiowa and Commanche.
Chisholm's vast knowledge of southwestern geography were
invaluable in trailblazing. He led several important expeditions
into the Southwest during the 1830s and 1840s, and during the
Civil War opened a trading post near present-day Wichita, Kansas.
Following the war, he blazed one of the first trading routes
south down from Wichita to the Red River in central Texas.
Eventually extended all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico, the
trading route became known as the Chisholm Trail.
A straight wagon road with easy river crossings and few steep
grades, Chisholm designed his trail for the lumbering heavy
freight wagons used for commerce. In 1867, a year before Chisholm
died, his trail also began to be used for a different purpose:
cattle drives. The rapidly growing Texas cattle industry needed
to move its herds north to the railheads in Kansas, and
Chisholm's gentle trail provided an ideal route. During the next
five years, more than a million head traveled up the road,
trampling down a path that was in some places 200 to 400 yards
wide. Hooves and the erosion of wind and water eventually cut the
trail down below the level of the plains it crossed, permanently
carving Chisholm's Trail into the face of the earth and
guaranteeing its lasting fame. Traces of the trail may still be
seen to this day.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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