One of the West’s earliest cattle drives occurred in 1854 when a cattleman named Tom Ponting drove a herd all the way from Texas to New York City. After the Civil War, Joseph McCoy pioneered the idea of taking them to Kansas and shipping by rail to Kansas City and Chicago.
Prior to the Civil War Texas cattle were mostly for local consumption and the marketable exports were hides and ta

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows