The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Open-Range Ranching 451

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Squeezing the Indians Economically, 1850–1893The construction of the railroads, the rise of mining and commercial farming, and vast
open-range herding all weakened the Indians economically and drove them from their lands.

Open-Range Ranching

Soon cattlemen discovered that the hardy Texas
stock could survive the winters of the northern
plains. Attracted by the apparently limitless forage,
they began to bring up herds to stock the vast
regions where the buffalo had so recently roamed.
Introducing pedigreed Hereford bulls, they improved
the stock without weakening its resistance to harsh
conditions. By 1880 some 4.5 million head had
spread across the sea of grass that ran from Kansas to
Montana and west to the Rockies.
The prairie grasses offered ranchers a bonanza
almost as valuable as the gold mines. Open-range

ranching required actual ownership of no more

than a few acres along some watercourse. In this

semiarid region, control of water enabled a rancher

to dominate all the surrounding area back to the

divide separating his range from the next stream

without investing a cent in the purchase of land.

His cattle, wandering freely on the public domain,

fattened on grass owned by all the people, were to

be turned into beefsteak and leather for the profit

of the rancher.

Theoretically, anyone could pasture stock on the

open range, but without access to water it was impos-

sible to do so. “I have 2 miles of running water,” a

cattleman said in testifying before the Public Land