On the Trail to Bloody Newton

Adventure awaits the traveler on great cattle drive routes from Texas to Kansas. Among Kansas cattle towns, 1871 is probably best remembered for Wild Bill Hickok’s gunfight with Phil Coe in Abilene. But there was another violent shootout that year that’s often overlooked, even though it was bloodier than the one in Abilene later that year. The Chisholm Trail was entering its fifth year in ’71, when an estimated 600,000 longhorns would come north from Texas, but Abilene would have competi