There were less dramatic fluctuations on the roads east of the Missouri. The Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley, which was controlled by the Chicago and Northwestern, increased its shipments of animals from 93,626 tons for 1885-86 to 159,356 for 1886-87. The traffic in animals fell for the Chicago and Milwaukee from 372,699 tons (5.69 percent of total traffic) to 343,014 (4.67 percent); for the Chicago and Northwestern it rose from 407,443 (4.78 percent) to 418,098 (4.25 percent); for the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba, the least important livestock road, it remained stationary at from 21,126 tons (1.5 percent) to 21,138 (1.2 percent).
John Clay remembered that by the spring of 1888 there was plenty of water and that reduced cattle numbers meant that "[i]t was a virgin range we had to stock up."
Clay, My Life on the Range, 92-98, 146.
Clays account of resurrecting the Dickey Cattle Company on the Little Missouri gives some support for an increase in cattle shipments to the West. Although restocking took place, the timing and details in Clay are far from clear.
Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, 2, 7, 9-12, 16-17, 19-20, 23-24, 70.
Whitaker, Feedlot Empire, 57-58, quote 63, 99-105, 115, 124-25.
C. Knick Harley, "Western Settlement and the Price of Wheat, 1872-1913," Journal of Economic History 38 (Dec. 1978): 866.
Callaway to Adams, Nov. 29, Dec. 6, 1884, UP, SG2, ser. 1, box 7, f. 33.
Harley, "Western Settlement," 867.