The First Cowtowns

Howdy folks, I'm Ron Wilson, poet laureate. The cowboy really came alive in legend at the time of the great cattle drives. The goal of the Texas drovers was to get to Abilene. This poem is in honor of the first cow town.

One of the first cow towns the world had ever seen was the little community known as Abilene. It all began after the Civil War here with demand for beef from the western frontier. A livestock dealer named Joseph McCoy

helped bring about the American cowboy.

He saw Longhorns in Texas running free,

and he knew what an opportunity these could be.

McCoy looked for a place with grass and water abiding,

where he could build a big railroad siding.

He traveled through Kansas on a railroad route west

in search of a town that would suit his request.

When he got to the city of Abilene,

he found the place which he had foreseen.

It became a cattle shipping point henceforth

for Texas drovers, bringing cattle north.

Thousands of Longhorns came up the Chisholm Trail

to the city of Abilene to meet the rail.

The money flowed and cowboys got wild

until the local folks got riled.

In time the cattle trade moved west

in the Texas cattle ranchers quest,

but in the history of the West,

the name still resounds,

Abilene, Kansas, one of the first cow towns.

Happy trails.