Located just east of the Eisenhower Center in Abilene, KS, the
Heritage Center contains history and numerous historic items from
Abilene's and Dickinson County's wild and notable past, from its
time as the trailhead along the Chisholm Trail to Dwight
Eisenhower. The Heritage Center contains both the Historical Museum
and the Museum of Independent Telephony.
EVENT NOTE: Each year, on the first Saturday of October, the
Heritage Center hosts the Chisholm Trail Festival featuring music
and re-enactors of turn of the century history.
The highlight of a trip to the Heritage Center is the 1901 CW
Parker Carousel.
Rides are available on the hand-carved horses.
The History of the Chisholm Trail
Scot-Cherokee trader Jesse Chisholm first marked the famous
Chisholm Trail in 1864 for his wagons. It started at the confluence
of the Little and Big Arkansas Rivers and went to Jesse Chisholm's
trading post, southwest of present day Oklahoma City.
Jesse Chisholm used the trail to trade with the U.S. Army and
Native American tribes (Indians) from his trading post at the
present site of the Twin Lakes Shopping Center in Wichita to his
southern trading post in Indian Territories. The Wichita Indians
used the Chisholm Trail when they moved from their native territory
to the mouth of the Little Arkansas and also when they returned in
1868.
Joseph G. McCoy, a cattle buyer from Illinois, was instrumental
in extending the Chisholm Trail from present day Wichita to
Abilene, Kansas, to promote and establish cattle market for
thousands of longhorn cattle from Texas. In 1867, McCoy built
stockyards that he advertised throughout Texas. Approximately
35,000 cattle followed the Chisholm Trail during the first season
to Abilene in 1867. Through Joseph McCoy's promotional and
entrepreneurial efforts Abilene became a prosperous and famous
cattletown from 1867 to 1870.
In the five years from 1867 to 1872, more than three million
head of cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail from Texas to
Abilene.
By 1870 thousands of Texas longhorn cattle were being driven
over the Chisholm Trail to the Union Pacific (later the Kansas
Pacific) Railroad shipping center at Abilene. By 1871 as many as
5,000 cowboys were often paid off during a single day. Abilene
became known as a rough town in the Old West.
The Chisholm Trail in Kansas generally follows a true north
route through or near the following communities in Central Kansas:
Caldwell, Clearwater, Wichita, Newton, Goessel, Lehigh and
Abilene.
As local interest waned in the cattle business in Abilene in the
early 1870s, Ellsworth and other points along the Kansas Pacific
Railroad established a market for the Texas cattle business. The
cattle business on the Chisholm Trail moved south to Newton, Kansas
in 1871 as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad built to that
point on the Chisholm Trail. Newton became one of the most
notorious and violent towns from the cattle business in its
one-year reign as a prominent cattle town.
The City of Wichita approved in 1871 the issuance of a $200,000
bond to build a railbranch from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
Railroad to acquire the cattle business. With the completion of
this branch in 1872, Wichita became the new terminus for the cattle
business on the Chisholm Trail. The cattle business thrived in
Wichita with the saying Anything Goes from 1872 - 1876.
In 1880, the cattle business moved further south along the trail
to Caldwell, Kansas as it competed with Dodge City, the Cowboy
Capital which promoted the Western Trail (ie., western branch of
the Chisholm Trail -- also called the Texas Trail) for the Texas
cattle. Dodge City held the cattle trade for 10-years, the longest
of any cattletown. Although a 1885 Kansas quarantine law tried to
stop the Texas cattle trade, only the well-known January 1886
blizzard, which killed all the cattle in southwest Kansas, would
end it.
(from http://www.vlib.us/old_west/trails/cthist.html)
The Heritage Center of Dickinson
County
412 South
Campbell, Abilene, Kansas 67410 -- directly east of the
Eisenhower Center
785-263-2681 e-mail heritagecenterdk@sbcglobal.net
Open daily all year.
Winter
Hours: Monday -
Friday 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM --- Sunday 1:00 AM - 5:00
PM
Extended hours from Memorial Day thru Labor Day -
Open until 4:OO PM Monday - Friday and until 8:00 PM
Saturdays
Admission fee: $4.00 for those 16 years and
older. Carousel extra. Seniors (62
and over) $3.00. Carousel extra. Carousel only
$2.00 each Children (age 2-15) $2.00 each and includes
Carousel. Inquire for group rates of 8 adults or more and school
group rates.