There is irony in life. One of the fatalities in the Cincinnati, Ark., tornado was a ninety some year-old lady who also lost her husband in the storm. They found her injured on the ground near where her house was destroyed the morning of the storm. Due to the tornado damage and debris, it took responders some time to get to her. She later died in the hospital. She had been born in Texas, the story was related to me, on a night when tornadoes rumbled around her neighborhood. Born in a storm and taken away by one, ninety plus years later is simply part of the twist of things that happened on the Arkansas-Oklahoma state line that January morning.
I told you last issue Cincinnati was a thriving metropolis, in the late 1840s located on the military road that bisected this nation. The military road from Minnesota to Louisiana ran right through there and as I pointed out there was a great deal of commerce in that valley. I saw an old photo in a history book saying Arkansas Beef was $1 a pound, native beef 10 cents a pound. Most folks who grew up in Western Washington County knew why that was the truth. Many of their ancestors had driven cattle in the mid 1800s to the gold field and sold them for large profits. The valley around Cincinnati was a gathering grounds for herds to form that were then driven to California. The cattle these farmers owned were British cattle, probably mostly Shorthorns which were the main breed.
Cattle were gathered in herds around 500 and driven over the Cherokee Trail to Colorado, then up over the South Pass in Wyoming to Salt Lake City, Utah, and on to California. The cowboys all rode mules. No chuck wagons, they packed all their supplies on mules, too. The biggest problem they had were keeping the cattle out of the large buffalo herds. That was the pain of the cowboys who drove them. Every night the cattle would drift in with wild ones and it was not easy to get them out.
One cowboy complained so much about the task they finally, at his request, made him the cook’s helper. Now that never happened on a Texas to Kansas cattle drive, or at least no one bragged about it. Fortunes were made on these drives at a time when money was scarce all over the frontier.
Ivan Denton, a great artist and sculpture, wrote a book about cattle brands in Arkansas, and in that book, told about riding his Arab horse on that same route from West Fork to California. He considered his horse, Sonny, like the ones that Cortez brought here. He made the trip with a bedroll and small goods, living off the land, and his wife caught up with him at designated spots on the way to re-supply him. I looked for that book, I believe it is called Arkansas Brands by The University of Arkansas Press, but did not find my copy.
He’d had scads of research on the first brands starting when Americans initially came to this state after Jefferson bought the land. Denton’s horse sculptures today are priceless. He was featured in National Geographic Magazine as well. My short visits with him were always rewarding, he was a historical library of the west. But his ride is a great example of the Cincinnati Cattle drives.
You know the cattle driven later taken along with the Fancher Wagon Train that was massacred in Mountain Meadows also had a herd of cattle with them. Several of the men were killed in that raid that had made previous treks to the gold field with Arkansas cattle.
As I close the history of Cincinnati there was a book published called Cincinnati. I got my copy from a lady who grew broilers for me when I was her fieldman back in the 1960s. I looked for both books, but my collection of historical books is so large I could find neither.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting www.ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
