The Economics of Cattle Trails

SS5E1 The student will use the basic economic concepts of trade, opportunity cost, specialization, voluntary exchange, productivity, and price incentives to illustrate historical events.

b. Explain how price incentives affect people’s behavior and choices (such as decisions to participate in cattle trails because of increased beef prices).

The land and climate in Texas were perfect for raising cattle!

Cattle Grazing near a Large Wooden Windmill, Photograph, n.d.; digital image, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth43215 : accessed June 06, 2011), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Cattle Raisers Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

Since it was easy to raise cattle in Texas, ranchers raised lots and lots of them.

What do you think happened to the prices of cattle in Texas since there were so many of them?

Take a look at the double line graph found on page 239 in your Social Studies book.

$45 $40 $35 $30 $25 $20 $15 $10 $5 $0 Demand Supply 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 What happened to the price of cattle when the supply was very high?

When the supply of cattle was very high, the price of the cattle was low. What might ranchers decide to do in this situation?

Many ranchers began looking for new markets for the cattle.

A market is a place where buyers and sellers exchange goods or services.

Since it was difficult for people to raise cattle in other parts of the country, they had to get the cattle from ranchers in the Southwest.

They were willing to pay a lot more for cattle—about $40 a head!

This money was a big incentive for ranchers to take their cattle to other parts of the country.

An incentive is a reward that motivates people to do something.

Of course it wasn’t easy to move thousands of cattle across 3 or 4 states!

Ranchers chose to send their cattle on cattle drives because they could make a lot of money selling them in other places.

Choose one of the tasks below to demonstrate your understanding of the economics of cattle trails.

Imagine that you are a stockyard boss in Abilene, Kansas. Write a letter to a Texas rancher explaining why he will make a lot of money if he drives the cattle to Abilene.

Create a song that cowboys might sing on the trail about why they are making this long journey.

Pantomime the reasons why ranchers chose to drive their cattle to railheads in other states. After you show your pantomime to the class, you should explain the meaning of what you did.

Design a poster encouraging ranchers to drive their cattle to a railhead. Make your poster visually appealing but also make it clear why ranchers should make this choice.