Just after the Civil War, ___ beef sold for about $4 per head in overstocked Texas, but in the growing cities on the east coast, the sought-after meat went for $30 to $40 per head. Texas could make huge profits by moving their herds north on the now-famous trails that stretched from far south to the railroad towns. From the 1860s to the late 1880s, cowboys herded over ten million cattle to market on the controlled chaos of a trail drive. Hard to believe that all that legendary Texas cattle history happened in a mere years.