BLUESTEM IN THE FLINT HILLS

“Texas shipped up the horns,” Kansas cowmen used to say, “and we put the bodies under them.” They meant that bony steers from Texas grew fat in the Bluestem pastures of Kansas. Stockmen drove their herds here along the old cattle trails, arriving by late April. The animals would graze and gain weight during May and June, then get shipped off to the Kansas City stockyards in July and August.

This yearly cycle began in the 1870s and by the late 19th century, cattle were shipped by rail.  For thousands of years prior to that, the great bison herds roamed these acres. Their grazing and migration, along with periodic prairie fires shaped the ecology of the region. Eventually hunters drove the bison nearly to extinction. The Flint Hills extends from here to Oklahoma in a north-south strip approximately 60 miles in width. In the 1920s the Kansas Board of Agriculture began pushing a second name, “Bluestem pasture,” as a marketing vehicle. This area remains one of North America’s most fertile grazing belts.