Cowboys: The Original American Shippers
March 17, 2015
The Houston Rodeo is in full swing down in Texas, and it’s a celebration of all-things cowboy. The original cowboys were more than just dudes with cool boots and awesome mustaches. They were also pioneers when it comes to shipping.
In the second half of the 19th century, more than 20 million cattle needed to be herded from Texas to railheads in Kansas, which is where they’d be put on trains to head out east. Cowboys were were hired to drive the cattle — on average 2,000 at a time — across the long distance.
Many of their concerns were similar to ours are today. In the same way that we consider how size and weight affect shipping costs, cowboys had different considerations when it came to speed. They could drive cattle as far as 25 miles per day, but the cattle would lose so much weight that they would be hard to sell. Therefore, the cowboys needed to optimize their drives, which was usually around 15 miles per day.
Although cowboys are often thought of as stoic loners, they actually had to work really well as a team. Each cattle drive include a group of 10 to 15 wranglers plus a cook. (Apparently, they didn’t have pizza delivery in the Wild West.)
The times and technologies have changed, but we’ve picked up where the cowboys left off. We work as a team to carefully craft plans to get precious cargo quickly and safely to its new location. We always knew that Ernest’s president, Tim Wilson, was a cowboy at heart!
So saddle up, buckaroos, and contact us to see how Ernest can get your packaging to ride high!
