Big Die-Up
The Big Die-Up (or Great Die-Up) refers to the death of hundreds of thousands of cattle on the Great Plains of the United States during the unusually cold and snowy winters of 1885-86 and 1886-87. Many ranchers were bankrupted as a result and the era of the open range in which cattle roamed unfenced on the plains began its decline.
Background
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Chinook2.gif/250px-Chinook2.gif)
Overgrazing and harsh winters were the factors that caused the Big Die-Up.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Texas_Longhorn_cow.jpg/250px-Texas_Longhorn_cow.jpg)
The near-extinction of the
After the Indians were forced onto
The Big Die-up impacted both the northern and southern Great Plains. The winter of 1885-1886 was mild on the northern plains but the blizzard of January 1886 was catastrophic for ranchers on the southern plains. The winter of 1886-1887 had a wider impact with the Big Die-up killing hundreds of thousands of cattle and bankrupting many ranchers on both the northern and southern plains.[8][9]
Texas and the 1886 blizzard
In 1875 the Indian tribes of the southern Great Plains had been relocated to
In 1883, With the Texas panhandle already crowded with cattle, ranchers leased 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of land in Indian Territory from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. Disputes resulted in the threat of violence between Indians and ranchers and in 1885 President Grover Cleveland ordered the ranchers to remove their cattle from Indian territory. This added more than 200,000 cattle to the already over-grazed land in the Texas panhandle and Kansas. "Pastures that could have sustained 'a cow on every 40 acres had one on every 10 acres.'"[12]
Adding to the problems in 1885, prices for cattle fell and autumn was unseasonably dry. In November large wildfires burned grassland from the Arkansas River in Kansas southward to northeastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma panhandle, and the Texas panhandle. The grass that remained was insufficient to sustain the cattle on the range.[13]
On January 1, 1886, a snowstorm dropped up to one foot (.30 m) of snow in western Kansas. On January 6, 1886, the
Prior to the blizzard, an estimated 2.5 million cattle inhabited the southern plains. The cattle were prevented from migrating to sheltered and more southerly areas by the drift fences and their bodies piled up near the fences, in rivers, and along the railroads. Ranchers in New Mexico cut their fences to allow the cattle to seek shelter in sheltered valleys. Twenty-five percent of the cattle north of the Canadian River where drift fences were present are estimated to have died; south of the river the losses were only one percent. Individual ranchers often lost a larger percentage of their herds. Cowboys were put to work harvesting hides of dead cattle and 400,000 were marketed in Dodge City.[15]
The 1886-1887 winter
The impact of the blizzards in the southern plains in early 1886 was compounded by conditions later that year, especially on the northern plains. The summer and fall were dry and grass was in poor condition for grazing cattle. The first blizzard of winter occurred on November 22 and 23. Cattle had trouble digging through the snow to reach to grass underneath. In late December the weather turned very cold reaching an unofficial temperature of −35 °F (−37 °C) at Glendive, Montana. Bitterly cold weather returned in late January and a newspaper report said "more snow has fallen this year than any previous year in west Dakota." Bismark, North Dakota reported temperatures of −43 °F (−42 °C) on February 1 and 12.[16] The winter weather even reached the West Coast, with snowfall of 3.7 inches in downtown San Francisco setting an all-time record on February 5, 1887.[17]
A
Impact
Despite the losses and the poor condition of the grasslands, the plains recovered quickly -- aided by the reduction in the number of cattle and favorable weather during the remainder of 1887 and 1888. Prices for cattle improved in 1888, but in the words of one historian "the days of the open range never returned."[19] The Big Die-up caused changes in the ways of the cattlemen. Laws increasingly restricted the right of cattlemen to graze on "open" (publicly-owned) lands. The number of small scale ranchers proliferated. They built fences to enclose their herds and improved the quality of their cattle by introducing new breeds and providing them shelter, forage, and water rather than allowing them to roam freely. Ranching after the Big Die-up "became more a business, less a gamble."[20]
Footnotes
- ^ "Chapter 8: Livestock and the Open Range, 1850-1887" (PDF). Montana Historical Society (MHS). Retrieved 10 May 2024.
- ^ Combs, H. Jason (2023). "The Early Open-Range Cattle Ranching Industry in Nebraska". Great Plains Quarterly. 43 (1): 44. Retrieved 10 May 2024. Downloaded from Project Muse.
- ^ Mattison, Ray H. (1951). "The Hard Winter and the Range Cattle Business". The Montana Magazine of History. 1 (4): 6.
- ^ Texas State, Historical Commission. "Charles Goodnight Historical Marker, Armstrong County, Tx". Retrieved 2008-10-10.
- ^ Wheeler, David L. (1991). "The Blizzard of 1886 and its Effect on the Range Cattle Industry in the Southern Plains". The South Western Historical Quarterly. 94 (3): 416–417.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 418.
- ^ "Theodore Roosevelt in North Dakota". Theodore Roosevelt Center. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
- ^ Anderson, H. Allen. "Big Die-Up". Handbook of Texas. Texas State Historical Society. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
- ^ Mattison 1951, pp. 5–21.
- ^ "Red River War". Texas Beyond History. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 417–421.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 419–421, 423.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 421–422.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 415–416, 421–425.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 426–431.
- ^ Mattison 1951, pp. 9–13.
- ^ "San Francisco Snowstorms". TheStormKing.com. Mic Mac Media.
- ^ Mattison 1951, pp. 16–21.
- ^ Mattison 1951, pp. 21.
- ^ Wheeler 1991, pp. 431–432.