Baxter Springs, Kansas, seemed ideally situated to capitalize on the cattle industry. Located just north of the Indian Nations in Kansas (and there was some debate at the time whether it was in Kansas, or was actually in the Nations), Baxter Springs was also just a few miles west of the Missouri border.

A military trail already led from Fort Gibson in the Nations through Baxter Springs and on north to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas -- an ideal route for cattle to be driven. A man named John Chisholm had already used the trail to supply Fort Scott -- the trail could very easily have become known as "Chisholm's Trail," but that particular name would go to another cattle route.

A man named John Baxter and his family had settled on 160 acres of land near where the military road crossed the Spring River in 1849, and opened a general store called "Baxter's Place." The Rev. Baxter, known as a gun-toting preacher, was gunned down in a property dispute.

Residents in the area, remembering the 6-foot-7-inch-tall preacher, and noting the numerous springs in the area, called their community Baxter Springs.

As Missouri became off-limits for Texas cattle, Baxter Springs welcomed them to Kansas. The community built stockyards with corrals capable of holding 20,000 cattle at a time, with plenty of grass and water. The town calls itself the "First Cowtown in Kansas" and quickly developed the same sort of reputation that the other cowtowns also would get: Here was a place for cowboys to unwind after several months on the trail, with lots of flowing liquor, card games and available women.

Information at the impressive Baxter Springs Historical Museum, Eighth and East Avenues (worth a visit if you're ever in town), states that, at one time, "every third door was a gambling house or liquor saloon."

At 10 miles per day, it took a cattle herd 100 to 110 days to travel from Texas -- by way of Preston and Fort Gibson in the Indian Nations. A typical herd would be strung out for two miles, guided north by 15 to 20 cowboys.

Baxter Springs boomed, growing from 1,500 residents at the time of its incorporation in 1868 to 6,000 by 1872. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad arrived in May 12, 1870, beating out the Missouri River Forst Scott and Gulf Railroad for the privilege. But when the railroad pushed on south, the Baxter Springs cattle industry died. By 1876, the community's population had fallen to 800.

It wasn't until years later, when old soldiers' reunions were held and the mineral springs were developed as a health spa that Baxter Springs began to recover. Today, it has a population of about 4,400. (If you do visit Baxter Springs, plan some time to tour the Oct. 6, 1863, Civil War battle ground where Quantrill's Raiders massacred federal troops as they attempted to surrender. It's a pretty chilling story.)

Back in 1867, however, as frustrated cattlemen turned their herds away from Missouri and toward Baxter Springs, the Kansas Legislature and an Illinois entrepreneur began to offer them reasons to take a route farther west. The legislature passed a law in 1867 that eased the quarantine restricting Texas cattle from entering the state, but only west of "the first guide meridian west from the sixth principal meridian" -- which runs about a mile west of Ellsworth, Kansas. That opened an alternative route for the cattlemen to take their herds north into Kansas, if only they could find some way to ship the herds back east to St. Louis and Chicago.