The Chisholm Trail: Joseph McCoy's Great Gamble
Public Lands History
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Narrated by:
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Kirk Winkler
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By:
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James E. Sherow
About this listen
One hundred fifty years ago, the McCoy brothers of Springfield, Illinois, bet their fortunes on Abilene, Kansas, then just a slapdash way station. Instead of an endless horizon of prairie grasses, they saw a bustling outlet for hundreds of thousands of Texas longhorns coming up the Chisholm Trail - and the youngest brother, Joseph, saw how a middleman could become wealthy in the process. This is the story of how that gamble paid off, transforming the cattle trade and with it, the American landscape and diet.
The Chisholm Trail follows McCoy’s vision and the effects of the Chisholm Trail from post-Civil War Texas and Kansas to the multimillion-dollar beef industry that remade the Great Plains, the American diet, and the national and international beef trade.
Joseph McCoy’s enterprise forged links between cattlemen, entrepreneurs, and restaurateurs; between ecology, disease, and technology; and between local, national, and international markets. Tracing these connections, The Chisholm Trail shows in vivid terms how a gamble made in the face of uncontrollable natural factors indelibly changed the environment, reshaped the Kansas prairie into the nation’s stockyard, and transformed Plains Indian hunting grounds into the hub of a domestic farm culture.
“This engaging book, by a leading historian of America’s central plains, clearly and beautifully renders a sense of place....” (Jeffrey K. Stine, curator for environmental history, Smithsonian Institution)
“Deftly spans the continent, synthesizing economic and environmental histories to reveal the fascinating evolution of one of the nation’s first big businesses - cattle. ” (Sara Dant, author of Losing Eden)
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Mountain man and fur trader Jedediah Smith casts a heroic shadow. He was the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California via the Southwest, and he roamed through more of the West than anyone else of his era. His adventures quickly became the stuff of legend. Using new information and sifting fact from folklore, Barton H. Barbour now offers a fresh look at this dynamic figure.
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Narrator could use a pronunciation guide
- By Ralph M. Vaga on 03-16-20
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West Like Lightning
- The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express
- By: Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The thrilling narrative history of one of the most enduring icons of the American West, the Pony Express, from the number-one New York Times bestselling co-author of American Sniper - an exciting tale of daring young men pushing limits to the extremes across the vast, rugged, and unsettled American West.
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A Picture of Wild West Life and the Pony
- By Pierre C. on 08-07-18
By: Jim DeFelice
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Encounters at the Heart of the World
- A History of the Mandan People
- By: Elizabeth A. Fenn
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.
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Well deserved Pulitzer Prize winner!
- By DaveF on 11-10-19
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1493
- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.
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Fascinating Mindbending History.
- By Betsy Powel on 12-19-11
By: Charles C. Mann
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Fordlandia
- The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fordlandia by National Book Award finalist Greg Grandin tells the enthralling tale of Henry Ford’s failed attempts to transform a Connecticut-sized chunk of Brazilian rainforest into a homespun slice of American utopia.
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An eye-opening account of an arrogant man's folly
- By Melissa on 09-17-13
By: Greg Grandin
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States
- By: Mark Fiege
- Narrated by: William Bahl
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the dramatic narratives that comprise The Republic of Nature, Mark Fiege reframes the canonical account of American history based on the simple but radical premise that nothing in the nation's past can be considered apart from the natural circumstances in which it occurred. Revisiting historical icons so familiar that schoolchildren learn to take them for granted, he makes surprising connections that enable readers to see old stories in a new light.
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Will surely listen to it many times over.
- By Thomas Lopez on 01-24-20
By: Mark Fiege
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Nothing Like It in the World
- The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.
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A tragic waste
- By Joshua Tretakoff on 04-11-03
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Last Stand
- George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last three decades of the 19th century, an American buffalo herd once numbering 30 million animals was reduced to 23. It was the era of Manifest Destiny, a gilded age that viewed the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up or shot down. Supporting hide hunters was the US Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans.
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Depressing history of American tragedy
- By J. A. Bowen on 05-16-16
By: Michael Punke
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The Other Slavery
- The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
- By: Andrés Reséndez
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, then forced to descend into the "mouth of hell" of 18th-century silver mines or, later, made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos.
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overall a good book
- By Paola V. Hidalgo on 01-23-17
By: Andrés Reséndez
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The Age of Gold
- The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill on the American River, it completely transformed the territory of California. Hundreds of thousands of people sped to California by any means possible, and small cities sprung up to service their needs as they sought the precious metal. By 1850, California had become a state; it had also become a symbol of where the nation was going.
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Very Enjoyable
- By Claire on 01-15-04
By: H.W. Brands
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Wild Horse Country
- The History, Myth, and Future of the Mustang
- By: David Philipps
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In a powerful blend of history and contemporary reporting, New York Times reporter David Philipps traces the rich history of wild horses in America: their introduction by the Spanish conquistadors, their role in the epic battles between Native Americans and settlers, their vital place in American self-mythology. He travels through some of the most remote parts of the American West, known as Wild Horse Country, to investigate the wild horse's current dilemma, caught between the clashing ideals of ranchers, scientists, and more.
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Inaccurate Read
- By Lara Hooper on 07-09-19
By: David Philipps
What listeners say about The Chisholm Trail: Joseph McCoy's Great Gamble
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Western Researcher
- 04-27-19
I rode out the trail to the end, but it was rough.
The Texas cattle drive era fascinates me. I've read a lot on the subject and have even wandered out in to isolated "Red River", Texas where the Chisholm Trail began and drove it all the way to the Kansas shipping points. Over the years I've visited and revisited these Kansas cattle towns, each time armed with a little more information which allows me to see them differently. Picking up this book felt like a great opportunity to build another layer of information. If my current self could give advise to my former self, I would say don't waste your time. The author has no doubt spent a lot of time (measurable in years) harvesting information. The preface to the book outlines this, which I can respect being a researcher myself. He wraps up said intro by inviting you to come along for a ride down the Chisholm Trail. I was excited at this point. It equated to packing for a one in a lifetime vacation, but never actually leaving the house.
What you won't get in this book is the opportunity to actually be on the Chisholm Trail. You won't get any dirt on you, you won't meet any people along the way, you won't walk in to the Kansas cattle towns, you won't travel anywhere, you won't have a better understanding of the life span of the Chisholm Trail usage or a better intimate sense of its interworkings. What you will get is dictionary style writing, average rainfall amounts measured down to the tenth of an inch per month (in Kansas as well as England....yes I said England), an in depth look at prairie grasses, the history of prairie grasses, repeating of history of prairie grasses, and the repeated phrase "stored solar energy" over and over and over and over. I cannot discount that learning weather patterns and ecology of that time to be important and interesting factors in to the success, failure and risk of Joseph McCoy's endeavor, but these become to focal points of the book which comprise 90% of your reading. All information critical to understanding these points could fit in a magazine article, yet this information drolls on and on and on. Every chapter, which as a different title, felt like a continuation of the previous chapter, repeating the same information, never advancing the reader in to a logical advance of story and intrigue. After getting half way through the book, I couldn't believe half of it was wasted on this, only to realize the monotony of over emphasis was just beginning. You do get a fairly good view of McCoy and more background on him than you can find in a lot of other books, but I would not suggest to anyone that they should pick this book up solely for that given how much other dissatisfying content you have to wade through to get it.
I saw this book through to the end, despite my continuous frustrations. I figured if author Sherow could spend so much time in his life working towards this book, I could at least give it a full listen. I also kept faith that at some point the book would come around. It never did. I grew more and more frustrated. I've tried to frame my frustrations for anyone thinking of reading this book so that they can make a better buying decision or "enter and your own risk".
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