Welcome To Abilene--single cowboy figure leaning on sign post
$49.00

King & Country

Item Number: CD041

Welcome To Abilene

Abilene was and is a small town in Kansas in the United States.  It is also the home of The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, but that's another story...
In 1867, the Kansas Pacific Railway Company (Union Pacific today) pushed westwards through Abilene, where a local resident built a hotel and stockyards capable of holding up to 2,000 head of cattle and stables for cattle drive horses.
At the same time, the railroad constructed a 'spur-line' that enabled cattle cars to be rapidly loaded and sent on to various destinations in the Northern States.  Business in the town grew quickly and became the first, great 'Cow Town' of the West.

Here you can see one of the cowboys who has just driven a large herd of cattle all the way up from Texas to the railhead here in Abilene.  It's not surprising that after many long weeks on the trail and in the saddle he rests against one of the local sign posts marking the cowtown's city limits.

"South Of The Rio Grande"

The borderlands on either side of the Rio Grande, the winding river that separates the United States on one side to the north and Mexico on the other to the south.  For a long time, including most of the 19^th Century, this entire area and the river that runs through it was rife with cattle rustling, all types of banditry and general lawlessness of every kind and shape.  Many of the cowboys and vaqueros who moved across the Rio Grande on a regular basis were easily familiar with both sides of the law and who administered it in each place.

Due to be released in OCTOBER 2024.