Its exact route is disputed owing to its many offshoots, but it crossed the Red River just east of Henrietta, Texas, and continued north across the Indian Territory to Caldwell, Kansas and on past Wichita and Newton to Abilene.
"[1] In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy developed stockyards at Abilene, along the Union Pacific Eastern Division Railroad, since "the country was entirely unsettled, well watered, excellent grass, and nearly the entire area of [the] country was adopted to holding cattle."
According to Gary and Margaret Kraisinger, "Because it was late in the season, he employed W.W. Sugg, a stockman friend from his home state of Illinois, to ride south to intercept herds trailing to Missouri on the Shawnee Trail."
Grazing lands were becoming scarcer and these conditions were such that many of the settlers objected to the pasturing of the great herds in the vicinity.
The settlement of the valleys of the Arkansas and the Ninnescah rivers rendered it impractical to reach Wichita shipping yards after 1873 and the loading of cattle was transferred to points on the railroad farther west, finally stopping at Dodge City.