The Trail Drivers of Texas: Interesting Sketches of Early Cowboys

by J. Marvin Hunter (Editor)

J. Marvin Hunter’s The Trail Drivers of Texas is a brilliant collection of first hand accounts of men and women who lived on the trail and range in the Old West.

In total there are over two hundred different accounts from Texans in the nineteenth century. From the humorous to the deadly, the thrilling to the everyday, each of these stories are remarkably individual, depicting a Texas before the advent of the railroad.

Hunter explained that “These pages sparkle with the lustre of deeds well done by a passing generation, and it is our purpose to keep bright that lustre, that it may not pale with the fleeting years.”

Many of the major events and figures of Texan history are covered within this monumental work, from members of the Texas Rangers to old cowboys, from the gun slinging towns to travelling the Chisholm Trail.

"For 60 years, The Trail Drivers of Texas has been considered the most monumental single source on the old-time Texas trail drives north to Kansas and beyond ... Because of its vast volume of raw material, expressed in the words of those who lived the life and rode the long miles, students of cattle industry history regard it with high respect, even awe." Elmer Kelton, Dallas Morning News

J. Marvin Hunter was an author, historian, journalist, and printer who founded the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera, Texas. His books include Pioneer History of Bandera Seventy-five Years of Intrepid History , The Bloody Trail in Texas , Old Camp Verde, the Home of the Camels , a reference to Jefferson Davis's 1850s camel experiment in the Southwest, Cooking Recipes of the Pioneers , and Peregrinations of a Pioneer Printer . He edited and compiled The Trail Drivers of Texas which was published in 1920. He died in 1957.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

442 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1985

Reviews

[Jerry Blackerby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began this fascinating book on my Kindle back in 2016. It is a very long book, with many stories originally published in the 1920 consisting of tales of the many of the original trail drivers who made the trail drives in the late 1800s. It was edited and published on Kindle in 2016. I loved most of the stories and found many about distant relatives.

[John Rhoads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spellbinding history at it's fascinating best

So very many little short stories I had a hard time setting down each night. It contains so much, each could nearly be written as a separate book. Stuck with it and am glad of it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

J. Marvin Hunter Sr. is my great, great, great grandfather! I can't wait to read some of his stuff :) His son, J. Marvin Hunter Jr. is my great, great, grandfather; I remember seeing first edition copies of his books in our family.

[Rev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Mt great grandfather established a cattle ranch in Brown County, Texas around 1882.

[Pegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for research into that era of the Old West and the life of cowboys. For that, it was a wonderful resource.

[J]

Own two different Kindle versions of the same book. One is no longer available through Amazon.

[Babs M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real view of the life. Rawhide seems pretty accurate after reading this.

[LAB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of us have heard about the longhorn cattle of Texas and we probably have plently of mental pictures of the cowboys who drove these cattle north out of Texas to markets in Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming. A recent project spurred me (sorry, couldn't resist) to find out more about some of these trail drivers so I turned to The Trail Drivers of Texas, a collection of stories told by the men and women who lived that life. It was compiled by J. Marvin Hunter and originally published in 1925, then reissued by the University of Texas in 1985. It is a fascinating collection of cowboy history with a good index of names and places for those who only want to read selected items. I found it both interesting and useful.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though this book is 1,044 pages long, I enjoyed reading the personal accounts of men's and even some women's experiences on the trail and the situations they encountered en route to each drop point where cattle were to be delivered. The West was a true wilderness then - there were no inns or even homes/towns where one could find comfort or protection from the wild elements. The drama is very real: often food wasn't available for days at a time, cattle had to be physically led to safety across flood waters (you HAD to be able to swim), and Indians took horses & beeves as ransom for crossing their lands. This book is the second of two produced by the Old Trail Drivers Association, which was formed so that the original drivers' true stories could be told in their own words. It is not a narrative - all first-person accounts.