When A Dollar Meant A Dollar

It's no secret that cattle ranching was a lucrative business—after all, Cheyenne, Wyoming was considered the wealthiest city in the world in the mid 1800s because it had so many rich ranchers. And remember how those cattlemen fought to hold on to their fortunes when homesteaders started moving in—does the Johnson County War ring any bells? But just how profitable was it? Let's drive a herd of 45,000 cattle from Texas to Montana in 1884—we'll need 165 cowboys and a thousand horses. We have