If you go The West, Southwest
A 'cowboy' rounds up the tourists with a condensed cattle drive
By Edward M. Eveld, Knight Ridder, 07/28/02
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If you go The West, Southwest
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The cattle drive starts promptly at 11.
To most people, the persona of Lawrence, Kan., is a mix of college funk and higher learning. Phillips wants to add "cowboy" to that picture.
He and his wife, Beverly, own Free State Farm, about a mile and a half from Interstate 70, where three years ago they built a 10,000-square-foot Victorian home as a bed-and-breakfast inn. They got to thinking: In the midst of a travel slump, how could they lure more visitors to the place?
Phillips did some research. The Number one question fielded by toll booth operators on the east end of Interstate 70 is, predictably, "How far to Denver?" But the number two question is, "Where can we see a cowboy?"
Dressed to the cowboy hilt on a recent Thursday morning, the 57-year-old Phillips topped off his outfit with a black felt hat and headed out the inn's back door.
Farm foreman John Prochaska hitched draft horses Nell and Bell to a canopied wagon with benches, and a group of visitors climbed aboard.
This is Phillips' answer to the I-70 cowboy question. Twice a day, every day, a herd of 18 Texas longhorns kicks up a cloud of dust on a "cattle drive" past his 57-acre farm's horse pens, a giant pumpkin patch and neighboring corn fields.
"You're going to be able to see the cows about eyeball-to-eyeball," Phillips told the group of a dozen visitors.
Prochaska opened a gate and slapped his hands on his thighs to get the longhorns and their calves to exit the pen and start their journey, about three-quarters of a mile. A new calf, just a day old, remained behind taking a nap.
"What do we say when we start a cattle drive?" asked Phillips, as he made a lip-smacking noise that got Nell and Bell to jerk the wagon forward. "Head `em up. . ."
"Move `em out," shouted several of the youngsters.
Two cowgirls and one cowboy rode up on horseback as the cattle headed straight for a grassy ditch. The young cows, bounding playfully like puppies, sprang past the massive adults. The herd is a good-looking bunch, with mottled hides of rich browns, shiny blacks and bright whites.
Of course, Phillips isn't really a cowboy and this isn't a real cattle drive. Instead of several months — a typical cattle drive from Texas to any of several Kansas railhead towns after the Civil War was an arduous journey — this drive takes about a half-hour.
The cattle can't stray far, hemmed in by the barbed wire surrounding the cultivated fields. And the horsemen that keep the herd moving are teen-agers: Emma Prochaska, John's 16-year-old daughter; Lindsay Currie, also 16; and Tyler Langton, 14.
The idea is to give folks a sample of an 1870s cattle drive. Phillips fills in with historical tidbits along the way.
Kansas towns, such as Abilene and Ellsworth (although not Lawrence), were the end of the trail for many Texas longhorns. The cattle were loaded onto trains and shipped to market, where they fetched $40 a head rather than the $4 each would have brought in Texas.
"You can see why they wanted to move them north," Phillips said.
Cowboys were young and adventurous, performing a dangerous and difficult job, living outdoors for the better part of six months. Some also drank too much, got into fights and chased women.
"Not everything is pretty about the cowboy past," Phillips said.
Phillips pulled the wagon aside and let the cattle pass, giving everyone a close-up look and a taste of dust, which was flying high on a 90-degree day last week.
"Just imagine a thousand of these," Phillips said about the longhorns. "Think about how much dust they would kick up."
Phillips said a chuck wagon, carrying food, bedrolls, guns and medical supplies, would be part of an actual cattle drive.
Generally it was the "cookie" who drove the team and prepared the meals, a role that Phillips, a big man with a white beard, could play. At night, the cookie aimed the wagon toward the north star, pointing the way to Kansas.
"Take `em on in," Phillips yelled to the horsemen as the drive neared the end. That started a mini-stampede to the pens, where the cattle know there's food waiting.
Sisters Diane Barton of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and Debbie Eakes of Plains, Kan., enjoyed the ride with their mother, Sharon Davis of Salem, Iowa. Barton and Eakes took their sons to a basketball camp in Lawrence and decided to take a mother-daughters side trip.
The three stayed downtown at the historic Eldridge Hotel, where Phillips is the operator and part owner. They complimented him on the hotel's appearance, and he invited them to catch the cattle drive.
Phillips has a passion for horses and people, he said, so the hotel business, the bed-and-breakfast and the farm are a good combination for him.