History of Chuckwagons and the Flying T
The Flying T Chuckwagon has been on the Black Hills scene since 1979, following one of the Old West’s most unique and time-honored folk traditions.  Originally, the chuckwagon was a mobile mess hall, social center, and supply chest which accompanied cowboys on their cattle drives to rail heads hundreds of miles from home.
In the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, the abundant, nutritious grass that grew on the Great Plains permitted the development and rapid multiplication of great numbers of large meat-producing animals. The first was the bison, more popularly known as the buffalo. The next to come were cattle, which appeared in this part of the country in the late 1870s, after the Indian Wars had ended and the Black Hills opened up for settlement.
Many of the cattle that flooded the Northern Plains in the late 1870s were from Texas, where the cattle industry had prospered for many decades under Spanish and then American rule. Longhorn cattle traveled the dusty trail several thousands of miles to reach northern ranches.
Drovers used in this area what came to be known as the Western Cattle Trail. John T. Lytle blazed the trail in 1874, when he herded 3,500 longhorn cattle from South Texas to the Red Cloud Indian agency at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, eighty miles south of here. By 1879 the Western Cattle Trail was the principal thoroughfare for Texas cattle bound for northern markets.
Several factors led to the Western Cattle Trail’s decline: the introduction of beefier cattle breeds, the settlement of the frontier, and the use of barbed wire. The main cause, however, was Texas fever, a disease carried northward by longhorns, which infected northern herds.
By the early 1890s, three to five million cattle had been driven to northern pastures and markets along this route, but its time had come. John Rufus Blocker made the last reported drive over the trail to Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1893.
In the early days of the great trail drives the cowboys had to make do with what they could carry with them, including food. In 1866, to solve this problem, Texas rancher Charles Goodnight rebuilt an army wagon to serve as a portable cooking facility. He added a chuck box to the rear of the vehicle, containing a number of shelves and drawers to hold what a cook would need. A hinged lid dropped down to serve as a work surface. By suspending a canvas beneath the wagon in a hammock fashion, the cook had a place to put any fuel he might find as they moved from place to place.
The cowboy’s fare was beef, beans, biscuits, and coffee – traditional chuckwagon food. We’ve taken it a step further into the 21st century, however.
As the cowboy workers drove north, they were confronted with many problems: how to keep awake during long shifts in the saddle, how to keep alive during a cattle stampede, how to keep the finicky longhorns from running amuck during a thunderstorm or an Indian or outlaw attack. Singing was the answer. Cowboys sang to their cattle to calm them. They also sang to each other to determine their positions in relation to the herd, and they sang to keep awake during the long roundup.
The songs they sang were made over from others. They used melodies from songs they knew and changed the words to fit their experience. For example, the song “In the Bright Mohawk Valley,” a tune popular in New York, became “Red River Valley” in the West, and “Ocean Burial” became “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” It wasn’t until the 20th century that cowboy singers began to create their own music.
Today, from the site of the famous Western Cattle Trail, the Flying T Chuckwagon Supper & Show serves up fun and food Memorial Day weekend through mid-September, specializing in a hearty western meal with all the trimmings. Following dinner, professional musicians entertain the audience with lively old time music including cowboy ballads, country swing, and bluegrass favorites.