A Trail Blazer

But Jesse Chisholm didn’t use it for cattle…

The Chisholm Trail is one of the most important and famous of the paths used to drive cattle from Texas up to the railheads of Kansas. Ironically, the man who blazed the trail—Jesse Chisholm—didn’t use it for that purpose. Instead, he was a trader, working with settlers and Indians to bring them various goods and services. An estimated 5-million cattle were driven up the trail in the 1860s and ‘70s. Chisholm didn’t get to see that. He died in 1868, before the major cattle drive period.