Their names are Ellsworth, Abilene, Dodge City — These were the dusty, hardscrabble places where the cowboy worked and played, pushing hundreds of thousands of longhorns up the trail from Texas to the westward-reaching railroads. This was the birth of the American cattle industry in the United States and no place was more important than Ellsworth. Between 1868 and 1978, the cattle town was a major shipping point on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. The Texas Longhorns were moved along parts of the Chisholm Trail and the Ellsworth cattle trail, arriving in large numbers by late May and June of each year. Cattle buyers from feed yards and processing centers of the more populated areas of the East filled Ellsworth's hotels in anticipation of buying cattle on the surrounding prairies. The cattle purchased were then driven to Ellsworth's extensive stockyards and shipped east by train. In addition, buyers from the new ranch lands in the territory, such as Wyoming, purchased stock for grazing. The cowboys drove these cattle on extended trail drives to those ranch lands. Ellsworth's “End of the Trail” heritage provides a perfect atmosphere to tell the story of the trail drives that forged the romantic legacy of the American cowboy. The project becomes even more significant when you consider that the center of the National Drovers Hall of Fame will be the Insurance Building, a banking and investment house built in 1887 with a distinctive architectural feature known as an oriel. Loans flowed from the Powers Bank inside to the men and women who built the foundation of today's cattle industry. This is a rebirth, of the history that in so many ways defines our national character and of a building on north Douglas Avenue... Ellsworth's Signature Insurance Building |
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and their stories are unique to the pages of America's history.
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