Alt Hopper

I happened to read a little filler about the American origins of our “Mexican” and “Italian” and “Chinese” food. Familiar territory, including the development of chili on cattle drives.

This got me thinking about alt history for cattle drives. Our media and movies treat the Wild West as a long period of widespread wildness. In fact the cattle drives weren’t especially wild and certainly weren’t a long period. They were a specific temporary expedient, needed because ranches developed before railroads.

Two questions.

(1) Why were the cattle drives aimed at railheads? Why not ocean ports? Railroads were needed because cattle grazing territory was away from major rivers and oceans by definition. Land near rivers was alluvial soil, naturally watered and excellent for crops. West of the Dry Line, only sparse tough grass grew. Cattle liked it, but wheat and corn and vegetables were impractical.

(2) What was the alternative? Canals or rivers dammed and rebuilt to enable navigation. The Arkansas was finally opened for navigation to Tulsa in 1970, a century after the cattle era.

JC Hopper had the right idea, just a bit too late.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Non-interventionist attitudes were common before FDR.

This is a 1914 proposal for a canal running more or less along the Dry Line from Canada to Galveston.

The route:

Proposed by Mr JC Hopper of Ness City, which is pretty much self-explanatory….

On the horizon, glowing like the rising sun, is NESS CITY!!!!! CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE! ALL ROADS LEAD TO NESS!!!

And there’s old JC, looking portly and prosperous despite the Scotch Tape over his head.

In his hand is a scroll:

Peaceful homes are better than dreadnaughts.

Below him:

Internal improvements rather than external make a nation great.

Painted on the side of the canal:

Irrigation beats the standing army.

All a little clunky, but all ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

We DESPERATELY need to relearn and reapply all three.

Well, what happened to the Great Interstate Canal? Nothing. This map was its only product. Hopper tried to interest the gov’t, with no results. In 1914 the government was solely occupied with dreadnaughts, external “improvements”, and a standing army.

BUT: Twenty years later, when the Corps of Engineers started its major dam-building, it followed the same basic principle. Hold back water behind the Dry Line, to smooth out the irregular rainy periods and provide irrigation.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

If the Army Corps had been building Hopper’s dams and canals in the 1840s, there would have been much less pressure for an intercontinental railroad, and thus less “need” for the feds to create a war so New England sweatshops could take over the West instead of Southern agrarian serfdom.

And this finally led to a new thought about the result of those New England sweatshoppers.

They didn’t get what they wanted.

Despite killing and burning down 1/5 of the country, sweatshops never spread to the West. Despite huge supplies of leather from the cattle ranches, shoe factories never developed. Despite vast land suitable for growing cotton, textiles never developed. Despite ample coal and minerals and a huge demand, gun factories never developed. All of those industries stayed in New England. Neither form of serfdom took over the West.

Finally: The Walnut River, never dammed by Hopper or the Corps, was still flooding in the 1970s.