The Rest of the Story
As a writer of historical novels, I love incorporating actual history into my plots. As with most books, the research behind the story generally involves much more information than would ever actually appear in the story. In truth, I could easily spend all my time researching and not get any writing done at all!
Because I am a history nerd, I love sharing some of that mountain of research I collected with my readers. The following are just a few of the facts I uncovered during the writing of The Chisholm Trail Bride. It is my hope that these tidbits of history will cause you to go searching for the rest of the story.
First and foremost, the Chisholm Trail was actually many trails that began in Texas or at the Red River—opinions among historians vary—and culminated at the railyards in Kansas. Those who believe the Chisholm Trail began at the Red River would tell you that the trails that led north from the ranches in southern Texas had various other names. The others would say there were a hundred or more feeder trails that led to one main trail across Texas, the Chisholm.
For the purposes of this story, I am taking the position that the Chisholm Trail originated somewhere near San Antonio (some say at Donna, Texas) and swept northeast to Austin, then straight north through Waco and Fort Worth. From the stockyards at Fort Worth, the trail continued north to cross the Red River at Red River Station, then on through Oklahoma to end at the railyards in Kansas.
In the early years of the Chisholm Trail, the cattle were driven all the way to Wichita, Kansas, but as new railroad lines were put in, the trail’s end moved gradually south. By the later years of the trail, the use of which ended around 1887, the destination for the cattle was actually Caldwell, Kansas, which was just north of Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma.
Because trail rides could take months, ranchers who weren’t keen to spend all of that time away from home began to allow trailing companies to take their cattle for them. The trailing companies would gather up the livestock—usually hardy Texas longhorns—and drive them north to the railyards for a price that was generally based on the number of cattle the rancher was sending with them. Tens of thousands of cattle would be moved at once, which is just amazing to consider, isn’t it?
The history of the Chisholm Trail, blazed in part by Scots-Cherokee trader Jesse Chisholm and in use from the 1860s to the 1880s, is fascinating, and the story surrounding it is far broader than I can tell in this novel. Barbed wire and quarantines closed the trail by 1884, but during its heyday, it is estimated that more than a million mustangs and five million cattle were moved along its path.
I highly recommend doing more research on the subject. One book that I found particularly fascinating was A Bride on the Old Chisholm Trail in 1886 by Mary Taylor Bunting. This is a true account of a young bride’s trip up the trail with her husband on a cattle drive, and yes, it is still available for purchase.
The Waco suspension bridge opened to toll traffic across the Brazos River on January 1, 1870. At 475 feet long, the first major suspension bridge in Texas was wide enough for two stagecoaches to pass each other. Situated on the Chisholm Trail, the bridge also accommodated cattle with a charge of five cents per head. Today the bridge is only open to foot traffic and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I highly recommend you visit Waco and see it for yourself.
I spied an advertisement for the Reed School for the Cure of Stammering in Detroit in the 1880 version of Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of the United States and Canada. I bent history a little by having my characters mention it in 1889, but I couldn’t resist.
Alexander & Cornwell’s Drug Store at 219 East Sixth Street (also called Pecan Street during the 1800s) placed an advertisement in the June 13, 1889, edition of the Austin American Statesman newspaper stating that shoppers could find a complete stock of such items as toilet soaps, shoulder braces, fine perfumes, violin strings, chamois skins, and trusses. The ad claims their “soda water and milkshakes are unequaled in the city.” My character Justine would agree. I should add that the building is still standing at that address.
Gammel’s Old Book Store on Third Street was a real bookstore that placed an ad in the same newspaper. I have not been able to determine the exact address, but there were mentions of the store in newspapers as far away as Boston, so I assume they were quite successful during that time period.
The Heavens by Amédée Guillemin is a real book, and the descriptions I give are based on an 1871 copy that I found available for sale online. A scan of the entire book is also available for reading at archive.org. The illustration of Donati’s Comet from October 4, 1859, is indeed on the front flyleaf, and the appendix titled “Very Unequal Stars” is on page 524.
The Driskill Hotel is a historic Austin hotel, and its exterior has changed very little since 1886 when cattle baron Colonel Jesse Driskill opened what the local newspaper called the finest hotel in the state. In 1887, the Driskill was the site of the inaugural ball of Governor Sul Ross, which established a tradition that carried on for many years. The hotel, now owned by a major hotel chain, takes up nearly an entire city block and is still a showplace. Busts of the heads of Colonel Driskill and his two sons were incorporated in the architecture of the building, with the colonel’s facing Sixth Street and the boys aimed in other directions.
The home that Ben buys for Eliza is based on the Daniel Caswell house, a historic home in the Judge’s Hill area of downtown Austin. Built by a prosperous cotton merchant, the Daniel Caswell house is currently owned by the Austin Junior Forum and now hosts weddings and other special events.
I found fictional Wyatt Creed’s real-life Galveston home on a list of endangered historical properties at www.galvestonhistory.org. The two-story former beauty, built in 1886 by a well-to-do merchant, was originally a one-story home but was raised up after it survived the 1900 hurricane. At the time of this writing, the house is still standing and in need of a whole lot of love and work to make it a home again.
Encke’s Comet is a comet that appears in late June every three years. Close approaches to earth usually happen every thirty-three years. It is also believed to be the origin of the Taurids and Beta Taurids meteor showers.
The Galveston City Hall, a French Renaissance Revival building with elaborate turrets and a grand curved double staircase leading to the second floor, was built in 1888 on the corner of Market Street and Strand Street. The police department was on the second floor, with the Galveston Market—reportedly a meat market—on the ground floor. Other city offices took up the third floor. Unfortunately, the building was damaged in the Great Storm of 1900, rebuilt, and then used by the city until it was torn down in 1966.
In a case of bending the facts or, as I like to call it, bent history, I could find no evidence that there was, indeed, a Fourth of July parade in Austin in 1889, so I created one for this story.
While fireworks have been around for centuries, I also found no evidence they were set off on the state capitol grounds on Independence Day back in 1889, thus another case of bent history.
Any other errors or mistakes are mine alone. Happy trails, y’all!