Cattle town

[1] Cattle towns were made famous by popular accounts of rowdy cowboys and outlaws who were kept under control by local lawmen, but those depictions were mostly exaggeration and myth.

In 1875 the three of them Ellsworth, Newton and Wichita lost access to the cattle trails because of expansive rural settlement around the towns.

Additionally the influx of settlers, farmers and ranchers onto what used to be the cattle trails in Kansas and Nebraska forced old towns to be abandoned and new ones to be founded.

It differed from the usual cattle towns in that it was also a social and cultural center, known for its opera house, Atlas Theatre, Cheyenne Club, Inter-Ocean Hotel, and large number of businesses and mansions.

[3] Miles City was always a stopping point on the cattle drives from Texas, a place to fatten the herd before market.

In 1881 the Northern Pacific Railroad extended its line through the city,[4] and in 1884 the Montana Stockgrowers Association was formed there making it a leading cattle market.

Abilene's Red Light District stood north of town, but Mayor Joseph McCoy moved it to the east.

[7] In the early days of the cattle towns, the leaders were among the "sporting class," a group of saloon owners, gamblers, entertainers, providers of services, prostitutes and lawmen.

Over time however leadership of these communities fell into the hands of the "respectable class," which included merchants, stockmen, professionals, craftsmen, farmers, and domestic servants.

Both groups thought of tasks like fighting fires, getting water, removing sewage and funding schools as private affairs rather than falling to the public domain.

[7] This shift in the leadership to a more respectable group of people was further perpetuated by the influx of eastern Victorian culture to the frontier cattle towns.

Women provided a stabilizing effect on communities, creating roots in the form of families that encouraged eastern Victorian virtues and eclipsed the cattle towns' rough and tumble cowboy ways of old.

[8] These conflicting statements prove that even at the time myth and rumor were more prevalent than the truth, which is that for the most part cattle towns were rowdier than ordinary cities but were not the hotbed of crime and violence that many claimed.