Natural Resources Institute
texas a&m university
TAMU N E W S
Cattle Trails to Highways Article by BRITTANY WEGNER AND ALISON LUND Illustrations courtesy of TAMU NATURAL RESOURCES INSTITUTE As the lanes become fewer and more friendly, our Texas Land Trends (https://nri.tamu.edu/txlandtrends.org) research tells us the cattle grazing and pasturelands we look out across from our perch behind the wheel make up about 104 million acres of all working lands in the state, making cattle among the top contributors to the agriculture sector and economy. So, what do large urban centers and some grazing cattle have to do with a road trip?
Just as with the cattle drives, today’s highways follow the same general route, with reliable resupply points along the way.
T
he call of the open road, passing lanes with 80 mph speed limits, bluebonnets and yellow Mexican hats clustered along the medians, making our way back to open spaces—summer is nigh in Texas and road trip season is upon us. While speed limits are more like suggestions to most native Texans, no matter your destination there’s a familiarity in those vast stretches of highway, seemingly rolling on for miles and having always been there, allowing Texas to grow up around them. Fewer characteristics of Texas become more apparent than the time it takes to leave the city and the stark contrast from bustling traffic and overpasses to those open rural roadways wending away from denser populations. With every hour and new county line, green population signs and local dives reveal smaller communities and emphasize that the greater part of our population resides in the large urban centers mainly located in the Texas Triangle and border towns such as El Paso and Brownsville.
26 T E X A S W I L D L I F E
JUNE 2022
HISTORY OF CATTLE TRAILS Let’s roll it back over 150 years ago to when Texas officially joined the U.S. After Spanish cattle were introduced to Tejas in the 18th century and eventually prospered as free-ranging herds, numerous cattle trails popped up over the state as opportunistic cattlemen drove the thriving, roaming cattle populations to profitable market outlets farther north and east. These drives become a cornerstone in creating the “golden age of the cowboy” following the Civil War, with an estimated 10 million Texas Longhorns moved to market, in total. The cattle trails they traversed emerged with consideration for reliable supply points and avoidance of such hazards as attacks from Native Americans and rustlers, treacherous river crossings and unforgivable landscapes, in addition to landowner conflicts along the way. You might have guessed how those supply posts have evolved over time as we think back to those densely populated areas we passed through a few hours ago. ROADS OF TODAY Our Texas Land Trends team is constantly exploring the history of Texas to make projections and analyze trends in growth and expansion. Depicting their latest discovery, they’ve developed a new roadmap for your next trip, outlining the major Texas cattle trails so that you may follow along as you compare the landscape we know today to these historic remnants of what defined our state in centuries past. While we won’t be enduring the long days and harsh conditions cowboys and vaqueros experienced during cattle drives, we can certainly appreciate the vast lands they covered as we drive up I-35 and value the economic success that cattle ranching has afforded our state. Texas’ inherent identity and heritage is built on a unique economy and the foundation and way of life can be found along
