By 1890 the era of the cowboy had passed. The open range was a thing of the past, as were most of the men who had depended on it for their livelihood. Many factors caused the end of the open-range cattle business, not least of which was the westward push of the railroad. This was ironic, for that same westward push had sparked the expansion of the cattle industry in the first place.

As the railroad workers (known as "gandy dancers," because of their rhythmic movements in working with tools made by the Gandy Company of Chicago) laid rails stretching farther west, more people streamed into areas that had been frontier. That brought civilization, and with civilization came farmers, who shared the feelings of their peers in eastern and central Kansas about the Texas longhorns: They wanted the longhorns out of...