Lot Essay
In the years following the American Civil War, and spurred by the Homestead Act of 1862, thousands of settlers from the East travelled westward across the United States in search of a new life. Seeing an opportunity to supply these new inhabitants with beef, resourceful cattlemen, including Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, determined to herd cattle overland from their ranches in Texas to Kansas, Colorado and other states. The result were cattle drives such as that depicted in the present work.