Get connected to our cowboy roots

Be honest: before you moved to Oklahoma, did you picture our state as one filled with cattle drives and cowboys? This common misperception doesn’t represent the diversity of our modern community, but it is rooted in an important part of our past: our deep connection to the American west and its cowboy culture.

The origins of Oklahoma cattle raising go back to the 1830s when the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole tribal nations were forcibly removed from the southeastern United States to reservations in what is now known as Oklahoma. The five tribes brought large herds of livestock with them and practiced open range grazing, leading to increased herd sizes. In 1861, the Cherokee Nation alone had nearly a quarter-million head of cattle.

After the Civil War concluded, Oklahoma found itself in the center of cattle drives from the grazing lands of Texas to the cow towns of Kansas and Nebraska. Two stock routes of the Old West, the Chisholm Trail and the Western Trail, crossed through Oklahoma and played an important role in the economic impact of cattle drives.

As trail drives transitioned to more modern ways of moving cattle and the days of the open range were closed to allow for land settlement, Oklahoma’s cattle industry moved toward improved breeds and scientific methods of caring for them. The influx of wealth from the discovery of oil also created some of the country’s most well-known ranches, such as the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch in Ponca City and the Chapman-Barnard Ranch that now makes up part of the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

In Oklahoma City, the cattle industry spurred one of the first major drivers of our economy: a meat-packing plant and stockyards which was in, you guessed it, Stockyards City. The packing plants are now closed, but the Oklahoma National Stockyards is still thriving. While other major stockyards in terminal markets no longer exist, the Oklahoma National Stockyards has a cattle sale every week and is the largest stocker-feeder cattle market in the country.

This article originally appeared in The Better Life OKC blog.