Author Topic: Appalachian Cattle Drives: Mountain Beef from a Century Ago  (Read 1485 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Sanguine

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 35,986
  • Gender: Female
  • Ex-member
Quote


When one thinks of cattle drives, typically images of cowboys in West Texas pushing a thousand head of Longhorns quickly comes to mind.  Movies such as Lonesome Dove have solidified in our minds the Great Midwest as being the only home for such romanticized activity.

Though it is accurate that Texas and the Prairie States played host to some of the largest cattle drives in human history, more than a century ago, each year local communities were participating in similar cattle drives right here in Appalachia — though these activities enjoyed a uniquely Appalachian flair.

It has been well documented that long before barbed wire — and even afterwards — ordinary families in Appalachia would “turn their hogs ah loose’t” in the mountains in springtime and leave them to fend for themselves ...

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2019/05/22/appalachian-cattle-drives-mountain-beef-from-a-century-ago/

@mountaineer , you might enjoy this article.

Offline mountaineer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 78,601
Re: Appalachian Cattle Drives: Mountain Beef from a Century Ago
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2019, 08:24:50 pm »
Thanks - loved it. My WV ancestors from the 18th and 19th centuries were farmers and probably had a few head of cattle themselves!
Support Israel's emergency medical service. afmda.org

Offline Bigun

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51,489
  • Gender: Male
  • Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God
    • The FairTax Plan
Re: Appalachian Cattle Drives: Mountain Beef from a Century Ago
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2019, 10:16:16 pm »
Animals in these parts were ear marked or branded and roamed about freely for a very long time.   Only ending during my lifetime.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien