Cattle at the Smoky Hills River
In 1872, the city of Abilene, Kansas, known as the Queen of Cowtowns, told Texas cattlemen they were no longer welcome in their town due to the unruly conduct of the cowboys, the destruction that the big herds did to local land, and the tick fever the Longhorns carried. As a result, several Ellsworth residents went down the old Chisholm Trail to urge drovers to bring their herds to their town, which was situated about 60 miles southwest of Abilene.
The previous year, Ellsworth attracted some cattle drovers, and about 30,000 head of cattle were shipped. In 1872, Ellsworth began to thrive as a new shipping point when approximately 220,000 Texas Longhorns traveled the Chisholm Trail.
Ellsworth, Kansas Main Street, by Alexander Gardner, 1867.
The Kansas Pacific Railway Company surveyed a new offshoot of the trail, led by William M. Cox, the railroad’s General Livestock Agent. The new route saved the cattle drovers about 35 miles, leaving the original trail in Indian Territory, halfway between the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River and Pond Creek.
The trail crossed the Arkansas River at Ellinwood, Kansas, before reaching Ellsworth. The new route was sometimes called Cox’s Trail or the Ellsworth Trail, but most of the time, it was referred to as the middle branch of the Chisholm Trail.
In 1867, a Kansas law established a quarantine, prohibiting the entry of southern cattle into the state due to outbreaks of “Texas Fever.” However, Joseph G. McCoy, who had established the cattle market in Abilene several years earlier, convinced the state not to enforce the rule because of the high demand for cattle.
Ellsworth considered itself safe outside the quarantine line. However, it was a few miles inside the line. The town promoters assured the Texans that they would be exempt from the law; this proved to be the case, primarily because it was not enforced. Like other Kansas cowtowns, Ellsworth earned a wicked reputation with its many cowboys. However, the prosperity did not last, and its shipping pens were finally closed in 1875.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated January 2026.
Also See:
The Chisholm Trail – Herding the Cattle
Ellsworth, Kansas – Another Wicked Cowtown
Tales & Trails of the American Frontier
See Sources.