Joseph G. McCoy, a livestock broker from Illinois, helped Texas rebuild an economy wrecked by the Civil War of 1861-1865 by pioneering cattle markets. During the war, cattle had increased greatly, but Texas had no market and required long drives, so until better railroads existed, five-dollar longhorns could be sold in the North for twenty-five to thirty dollars or more. McCoy founded the first adequate market for Texans by securing cattle cars and building loading pens at the railroad in Abilene, Kansas, near the upper end of the trail started by Indian scout and trader Jesse Chisholm and used by Texans driving cattle through Oklahoma to Kansas. He also had part of the Chisholm Trail surveyed and marked to aid cattlemen. This became the best known of several cattle trails from Texas, over which some 10,000,000 beeves were driven during 1866-1884. When the M.K.T. Railroad reached Denison in Dec., 1872, giving Texas its own northbound cattle shipping outlet, McCoy moved here in 1873 and helped establish on this site the Atlantic & Texas Refrigerating Co. to benefit ranchers by shipping dressed beef. Texas owes much to the initiative, vision, courage, and leadership of Joseph G. McCoy.