Millions of longhorns were driven northward across the plains to railheads in Kansas from 1867 to 1889. These great cattle drives helped feed the nation just after the Civil War and produced the cowboy as one of the nation’s most enduring heroes, while the brief era of open range and free grass generated the greatest cattle boom in world history. This hill served as a landmark for drovers traveling northward from the Red River to a nearby campsite. Jesse Chisholm’s wagon tracks across Indian Territory became known as Chisholm’s Trail, and Texas cowmen using this route gave his name to the entire cattle trail from South Texas to Kansas. Chisholm, a Cherokee-Scot trader, was known to Indians as an honest and trustworthy man, a reputation that served his country well in his work as an interpreter and peace negotiator. Life on the trail tested men with severe weather, hazardous conditions, misery, and the constant danger of stampedes set off by lightning, thunder, or raiders, and scattered cattle left drovers with no rest until the strays were rounded up.