Cattle were raised on the cattle ranches in Texas and driven or transported to the railheads in Kansas it would take anything from twenty five to one hundred days to drive the cattle from Texas to western Kansas ranch owners were paid more for cattle in Kansas than they were in Texas cattle prices increased from 1866 to 1870 Increasing cattle pricing allowed ranchers to send more cattle to the railheads and this created what is known as the cattle boom today for example seven hundred thousand head of cattle driven to the midwestern markets in 1871