The Cattle Drive of 1866

By editor

Big Timber, Sweet Grass County, Montana

In the spring of the year 1866, amidst the vast and unsettled expanse of the American West, a man named Nelson Story, a cattleman of Texas origin and recent placer miner in the Montana territory, embarked upon an enterprise as bold as it was fraught with peril. Story purchased six hundred longhorn cattle at Fort Worth, Texas, and set forth with two dozen cowboys upon a journey exceeding fourteen hundred miles, aiming northward to the burgeoning mining camps of Montana. These camps, nestled amidst the craggy peaks and river valleys of the Rockies, had acquired a ravenous appetite for beef, a commodity rare and costly in that remote outpost of civilization. Story’s chosen path was the Bozeman Trail, a route carved through Wyoming’s contested plains, where the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne nations, resolute in defense of their ancestral hunting grounds, resisted the encroachment of emigrants and settlers.

Nelson Story was no stranger to the hardships of the frontier. Having labored in the placer mines of Montana, he had accumulated sufficient capital to invest in other ventures. The miners, though skilled in the extraction of precious metals, were ill-supplied with provisions, especially fresh meat. The local bison herds, though once numerous, had been depleted by relentless hunting. The miners’ demand for beef was thus a market opportunity to be seized. Story’s vision was to supply the miners with cattle driven from the far-off plains of Texas, a venture unprecedented in its scale and ambition.

The initial stages of the drive through Texas and Kansas were marked by routine hardships--the evasion of toll collectors, the vigilance against rustlers who prowled the plains, and the arduous task of swimming cattle across swollen rivers. Yet these were but preludes to the greater dangers that awaited upon crossing into Wyoming Territory. There, the Bozeman Trail, established only a few years prior by John Bozeman and his companions, had become a flashpoint of conflict. The trail was a shortcut to the Montana gold fields, but it pierced the heart of the Powder River country, a region sacred to the Lakota and Cheyenne peoples. The United States government, intent upon protecting emigrants, had established three military forts along the trail: Fort Reno near present-day Kaycee, Wyoming; Fort Phil Kearney further north; and Fort C.F. Smith in Montana.

By the time Story arrived at Fort Reno in October of 1866, the military situation was dire. The forts were besieged, and the trail was no longer a mere path but a contested battlefield. Near Fort Reno, Story’s herd was raided by Native warriors, who drove off many of his cattle. Far from yielding to despair, Story and his men pursued the marauders into the forbidding badlands. After a skirmish that left two of his cowboys wounded but none fatally, Story succeeded in recovering the stolen beasts. This episode underscored the hazards of the endeavor and the determination of all parties to assert their claims over the land.

At Fort Phil Kearney, Story encountered another obstacle. The fort’s commander, Colonel Henry Carrington, a career soldier charged with protecting the Bozeman Trail, ordered Story to encamp three miles from the post and forbade him from proceeding further. Carrington’s orders reflected the precarious military situation: the Native forces were numerous and aggressive, and the army’s hold on the trail was tenuous at best. Story, however, was not a man to be easily deterred. After a fortnight’s enforced delay, he resolved to continue the journey without official sanction. Traveling by night to avoid detection and securing the cattle during the daylight hours, Story and his men managed to evade further violent encounters.

The final stretch of the drive led them to Fort C.F. Smith, near the present-day Montana-Wyoming border, and then up the Yellowstone Valley to a location near what is now Livingston, Montana. There, Story established a cattle camp, effectively pioneering a route that would come to be known as the Texas Trail. This trail would serve as a vital artery for the cattle industry in Montana, which would grow to become a cornerstone of the territory’s economy. Nelson Story’s enterprise was thus not merely a singular expedition but the opening chapter in a larger narrative of settlement and economic development.

The significance of Story’s drive extends beyond its immediate commercial success. It occurred amid the broader context of the Plains Indian Wars, a series of conflicts engendered by the westward expansion of settlers and the imposition of federal authority over Native lands. The Bozeman Trail itself was a symbol of this expansion, a route that cut into the hunting grounds guaranteed to the Lakota and Cheyenne by treaty. The resistance by the Native tribes was fierce and sustained, culminating in events such as Red Cloud’s War (1866-1868), during which Colonel Carrington’s forts were besieged and eventually abandoned.

In this crucible of contesting sovereignties, Nelson Story’s cattle drive was an act of defiance and determination, one that pushed the frontier ever outward. As Story himself remarked in later years, recalling the drive’s hardships and dangers: "We were the first to bring Texas cattle into Montana, and the trip was no easy matter. Every mile was gained by hard riding and watchfulness, and we had to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice."

The drive’s success encouraged others to follow, leading to the establishment of Montana’s cattle industry, which by the late nineteenth century would rival those of Texas and Kansas in scale. Yet it also intensified the conflicts between Native peoples and settlers, as the land’s use was transformed from hunting grounds to grazing pastures. The events along the Bozeman Trail, including the military engagements at the forts and the persistent raids, foretold the eventual subjugation and displacement of the Plains tribes.

Not far from the site of Story’s cattle camp, a darker episode unfolded less than a year later. On April 18, 1867, John Bozeman, the very man after whom the trail was named and who had forged the route only a few years prior, was killed near the mouth of Mission Creek, approximately thirty miles west of this location. His companion, Tom Cover, attributed the killing to Blackfeet Indians, though the circumstances remain shrouded in uncertainty. Bozeman’s death marked another turning point in the saga of settlement and conflict in Montana, underscoring the dangers that attended the opening of the West.

In reflecting upon the cattle drive of 1866, one must perceive it as an event situated within the grander sweep of American expansionism -- a movement propelled by ambition, commerce, and the inexorable push of civilization into contested lands. The journey of Nelson Story and his men was not merely a cattle drive but a passage through the crucible of frontier history, where military, indigenous, and economic forces collided with profound consequences.

See also

• The Cattle Drive of 1866 at Big Timber, Sweet Grass County
• The Bozeman Trail at McAllister, Madison County
• [Val