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U.S. Landmark Books #60
Up the Trail from Texas
Up the Trail from Texas (Landmark Books, 60).
Library Binding
First published January 1, 1955
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83 people want to read
About the author
J. Frank Dobie
218 books51 followersCalled the "Storyteller of the Southwest," James Frank Dobie was born in 1888 on his family's cattle ranch in Live Oak County. During his long life, J. Frank Dobie would live astride two worlds: a rugged life on a Texas cattle ranch and the state's modern centers of scholarly learning.
Dobie came to Austin in 1914 to teach at the University of Texas. In time he pioneered an influential course on the literature of the Southwest. By the late 1920s, Dobie discovered his mission: to record and publicize the disappearing folklore of Texas and the greater Southwest. Dobie became secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, a position he held for 21 years.
J. Frank Dobie Dobie was a new kind of folklorist—a progressive activist. He called for UT to admit African-American students in the 1940s—long before the administration favored integration. Dobie's vocal politics led to his leaving the University in 1947, but he continued writing until his death in 1964, publishing over twenty books and countless articles.
The inscription on Dobie's headstone in the Texas State Cemetery reads: "I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good of life on earth." J. Frank Dobie was not content to simply preserve Southwestern heritage within libraries and museums. He gave life to that heritage and informed generations of Texans about their rich history.
Dobie came to Austin in 1914 to teach at the University of Texas. In time he pioneered an influential course on the literature of the Southwest. By the late 1920s, Dobie discovered his mission: to record and publicize the disappearing folklore of Texas and the greater Southwest. Dobie became secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, a position he held for 21 years.
J. Frank Dobie Dobie was a new kind of folklorist—a progressive activist. He called for UT to admit African-American students in the 1940s—long before the administration favored integration. Dobie's vocal politics led to his leaving the University in 1947, but he continued writing until his death in 1964, publishing over twenty books and countless articles.
The inscription on Dobie's headstone in the Texas State Cemetery reads: "I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good of life on earth." J. Frank Dobie was not content to simply preserve Southwestern heritage within libraries and museums. He gave life to that heritage and informed generations of Texans about their rich history.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 18, 2019
I didn’t know what exactly this book would be about, reading it simply because it was the last Texas Landmark book. As it turns out, the entire book was about driving cattle, and it was really interesting, even to me who has no interest in livestock unless it’s on a plate.
There are some gruesome details about the cattle themselves. One tactic they used on cattle that would run amuck was to cut their eyelids or certain tendons in their legs to keep them from stampeding. If there was a stampede, they would guide the leads into a spiral making them run into the rear of the group.
Dobie is giving second-hand accounts of much of this, at one point saying he heard one of the stories from a 90 year old. It reads the same way in a good way: It’s like hearing history from your grandpa. He has chapters on different jobs like cooks or the horse handlers. While the retelling is a bit crass by today’s standards, one “negro” cook he describes as “singing old plantation songs” (123) after a bad storm, it’s also filled with some interesting details about bread-making, for example, where he even lists ingredients like lard (107).
Unlike some other Landmark books, Dobie doesn’t take his subject too seriously. He praises staying with a herd and retells a story about one guy who ended up making seventy-five cents at the end of a drive but still saw it through (131).
I don’t know who I’d recommend this book to or anyone who’d want to talk about steers centuries ago, but it was good regardless.
There are some gruesome details about the cattle themselves. One tactic they used on cattle that would run amuck was to cut their eyelids or certain tendons in their legs to keep them from stampeding. If there was a stampede, they would guide the leads into a spiral making them run into the rear of the group.
Dobie is giving second-hand accounts of much of this, at one point saying he heard one of the stories from a 90 year old. It reads the same way in a good way: It’s like hearing history from your grandpa. He has chapters on different jobs like cooks or the horse handlers. While the retelling is a bit crass by today’s standards, one “negro” cook he describes as “singing old plantation songs” (123) after a bad storm, it’s also filled with some interesting details about bread-making, for example, where he even lists ingredients like lard (107).
Unlike some other Landmark books, Dobie doesn’t take his subject too seriously. He praises staying with a herd and retells a story about one guy who ended up making seventy-five cents at the end of a drive but still saw it through (131).
I don’t know who I’d recommend this book to or anyone who’d want to talk about steers centuries ago, but it was good regardless.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2013
An interesting read, but a bit less "thrilling" than I expected and rather tame for a Texas book. I found it to be mostly facts about how the cattle drives worked with some information of cowboys and cattle during through a small period of time in TX after the Civil War. Not as good as other Landmark books, but still a good read and I did learn a few things.
May 17, 2017
wasa OK book for western
February 21, 2024
This book is a sneak peek into the lives of cowboys. It gives a fascinating picture of a cowhand’s life, provided by true stories told to the author by cowboys themselves. The lives of cowboys were not, as Dobie points out, like those depicted in movies. Cowpunchers had hard lives, and many of the stereotypes are not true.
“As long as Western lands grow grass,” the author speculates, “...there will be cattle ranches and cowboys.” Today this is still true, but no more do we have the legendary cattle drives bossed by cowmen who know their cattle. The connection between cow and owner, beef and consumer, is nearly extinct. “The most dramatic life that the grass lands of the world have known,” Dobie writes somewhat remorsefully, “ended.” And how I wish this fascinating, exciting book had not.
“As long as Western lands grow grass,” the author speculates, “...there will be cattle ranches and cowboys.” Today this is still true, but no more do we have the legendary cattle drives bossed by cowmen who know their cattle. The connection between cow and owner, beef and consumer, is nearly extinct. “The most dramatic life that the grass lands of the world have known,” Dobie writes somewhat remorsefully, “ended.” And how I wish this fascinating, exciting book had not.
January 13, 2026
This edition of "Landmark" books is an example of the series at its best. I have to say: it was one of the more curious offerings in the series, but a very welcome one. I think they were capitalizing on the "Cowboy Craze" of the 1950s, taking the opportunity to acquaint young readers with a vital period in the country's history - and a unique and renowned scholar - but in a very entertaining way. The lives and deeds of former generations herein are presented in such a way that they inspire the imaginations of young readers, with stories told by an "O-G" Old Timer, known affectionately as the "Storyteller of the Southwest."
Hence, this volume was written by one who knew: the author himself, James Frank Dobie, was born on his family's cattle ranch in Live Oak County, Texas, in 1888, so he saw and experienced in his youth many of the goings-on he describes in this delightful book. Dobie apparently wasn't content to remain a "cow-puncher" all his life, however. Despite his early years spent becoming toughened and accustomed to a rugged life on a Texas cattle ranch, his path took a decidedly different and certainly unexpected turn.
Dobie became a college professor at UT Austin, in 1914, while he was still in his twenties. Over the course of his long life and storied career, he became one of the world's foremost experts on the history of the Old West, especially the American Southwest, speaking with the voice of one who knew - both of the rigors of that life, but also as one who had personally interviewed many of the men he studied. And, indeed, that became his life's mission: to document and preserve the quickly-vanishing folklore, the truth and the tall tales of early Texas and the American Southwest. He later became the secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, working tirelessly to record the experiences and life stories of the men who braved and blazed the cattle trails others would follow for a generation.
In the tradition of the Santa Fe Trail volumes, "Up the Trail from Texas" provides a vivid description of various aspects of the cattle trade in the western US, from the early 1800s through the end of the nineteenth century, when at long last, the railroads supplanted the thousand-mile-long cattle drives which had become a staple of life in the American West. In the mid-1870s, cattle cars finally made it as far south as San Antonio, connecting the furthest reaches of the country with the packing houses in Kansas City and Chicago, rendering the drovers obsolete. Their legacy lives on, however, as many well-romanticized figures of this period remain household names, at least in the US Heartland. Many of our country's most illustrious figures cut their teeth on Western cattle ranches or as drovers, before they went on to greater glory later in their lives.
Notwithstanding some of the likely tall tales contained herein, the book also attempts to dispel some of the stereotypes about cattle drovers and their occupation, noting in particular the harsh conditions and hazards they faced on a daily basis. Most notably, the cattle they contended with were little like the highly domesticated, feedlot-fattened tanks we know today. These rangy longhorns, who were little domesticated at all, actually, having almost reverted to their wild state, were extremely aggressive and nearly as impossible to herd and drive as antelope. Stampedes were a constant threat, as the cattle frequently outsmarted greenhand drovers inexperienced in controlling them.
Other hazards abounded: the harsh environment - which included run-ins with venomous snakes, lack of water, or too much of it, in the case of fording a raging river swollen by a sudden cloudburst, lightning storms, which could pick off man and beast alike as surely as a rifle shot, and encounters with hostile bands of indigenous peoples weren't the only threats the cowpokes faced. There was almost no law on the trail, and rustlers were also an ever-present threat. The cattle drives and the men who ran them were as starkly different from their romanticized Hollywood versions as unscripted TV shows are from actual reality.
This was such a fun book to read, I didn't want it to end. I will now endeavor to look into the author's other books, as apparently he published more than twenty! This one was a good introduction to the subject, however, full of colorful anecdotes, including personal accounts by Old West cowboys the author once knew personally (having been published in 1955, the author had heard and recorded firsthand experiences from those who once rode the Chisholm Trail, although those tall tales are also certainly given to exaggeration!).
This was definitely a worthwhile addition to the Landmark series, which seeks to inform young readers about any and all aspects of our nation's diverse and colorful history. It was easily one of my top five favorites in this series of those I've read so far. Dobie is a gifted storyteller, incorporating history and folklore into a volume which gives a detailed description of a way of life which has now long passed into history.
Because of men like Dobie, however, the memories and experiences of those brave men who played a pivotal role in the development of the West are preserved to awe and inspire new generations of youngsters, which is the entire point of this priceless book series.
Hence, this volume was written by one who knew: the author himself, James Frank Dobie, was born on his family's cattle ranch in Live Oak County, Texas, in 1888, so he saw and experienced in his youth many of the goings-on he describes in this delightful book. Dobie apparently wasn't content to remain a "cow-puncher" all his life, however. Despite his early years spent becoming toughened and accustomed to a rugged life on a Texas cattle ranch, his path took a decidedly different and certainly unexpected turn.
Dobie became a college professor at UT Austin, in 1914, while he was still in his twenties. Over the course of his long life and storied career, he became one of the world's foremost experts on the history of the Old West, especially the American Southwest, speaking with the voice of one who knew - both of the rigors of that life, but also as one who had personally interviewed many of the men he studied. And, indeed, that became his life's mission: to document and preserve the quickly-vanishing folklore, the truth and the tall tales of early Texas and the American Southwest. He later became the secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, working tirelessly to record the experiences and life stories of the men who braved and blazed the cattle trails others would follow for a generation.
In the tradition of the Santa Fe Trail volumes, "Up the Trail from Texas" provides a vivid description of various aspects of the cattle trade in the western US, from the early 1800s through the end of the nineteenth century, when at long last, the railroads supplanted the thousand-mile-long cattle drives which had become a staple of life in the American West. In the mid-1870s, cattle cars finally made it as far south as San Antonio, connecting the furthest reaches of the country with the packing houses in Kansas City and Chicago, rendering the drovers obsolete. Their legacy lives on, however, as many well-romanticized figures of this period remain household names, at least in the US Heartland. Many of our country's most illustrious figures cut their teeth on Western cattle ranches or as drovers, before they went on to greater glory later in their lives.
Notwithstanding some of the likely tall tales contained herein, the book also attempts to dispel some of the stereotypes about cattle drovers and their occupation, noting in particular the harsh conditions and hazards they faced on a daily basis. Most notably, the cattle they contended with were little like the highly domesticated, feedlot-fattened tanks we know today. These rangy longhorns, who were little domesticated at all, actually, having almost reverted to their wild state, were extremely aggressive and nearly as impossible to herd and drive as antelope. Stampedes were a constant threat, as the cattle frequently outsmarted greenhand drovers inexperienced in controlling them.
Other hazards abounded: the harsh environment - which included run-ins with venomous snakes, lack of water, or too much of it, in the case of fording a raging river swollen by a sudden cloudburst, lightning storms, which could pick off man and beast alike as surely as a rifle shot, and encounters with hostile bands of indigenous peoples weren't the only threats the cowpokes faced. There was almost no law on the trail, and rustlers were also an ever-present threat. The cattle drives and the men who ran them were as starkly different from their romanticized Hollywood versions as unscripted TV shows are from actual reality.
This was such a fun book to read, I didn't want it to end. I will now endeavor to look into the author's other books, as apparently he published more than twenty! This one was a good introduction to the subject, however, full of colorful anecdotes, including personal accounts by Old West cowboys the author once knew personally (having been published in 1955, the author had heard and recorded firsthand experiences from those who once rode the Chisholm Trail, although those tall tales are also certainly given to exaggeration!).
This was definitely a worthwhile addition to the Landmark series, which seeks to inform young readers about any and all aspects of our nation's diverse and colorful history. It was easily one of my top five favorites in this series of those I've read so far. Dobie is a gifted storyteller, incorporating history and folklore into a volume which gives a detailed description of a way of life which has now long passed into history.
Because of men like Dobie, however, the memories and experiences of those brave men who played a pivotal role in the development of the West are preserved to awe and inspire new generations of youngsters, which is the entire point of this priceless book series.
December 13, 2024
Really great book! I loved learning about this part of Texas history, what a trail ride was really like and the dangers they faced. I’ve really loved getting to connect the dots with this author Dobie and other famous Texas names mentioned in the book and getting to know parts of their lives and legacy!
June 27, 2021
Summer doesn't mean a break from history...
October 13, 2023
An interesting history of cattle drives. My 109th read in this Landmark books history series. I read many of them in my youth some 60 years ago. Sixteen more books to go!
January 14, 2024
An interesting book for pre highschool on up. I enjoyed reading it and learning about the west which seems quite different than the movies.
March 12, 2024
One of the great migrations in American history actually occurred with cattle and not people.
December 27, 2024
Really good. Would recommend
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews