Before roads, traffic lights and strip malls, in fact, before railroad even existed in Texas and Oklahoma, frontiersmen crossed the Chisholm Trail, herding droves of up 2,800 head of cattle. They crossed through what’s now the city of Bixby, where Chisholm Ranch sits.

During the Civil War longhorn cattle were left abandoned in Texas and multiplied rapidly. After the war there were more cattle than could be consumed in Texas, but there was a shortage in the northeast. Cowboys would gather cattle from the Texas ranges and drive them to Chisholm, TX where they were assembled and then herded along the “Sampson Chisholm Trail” to the railhead at South Coffeyville. From there they were for shipped to the meat packers in Kansas City and Chicago.

The Sampson Chisholm Trail crossed the Arkansas River near what are now 151 Street South and 129th East Avenue. The cattle forded the river when it was low and were ferried across the river when the stream was too high. The longhorns were allowed to stop to rest and eat along the way. Due to the lush grass along the Arkansas River longhorn cattle once grazed on the land that is now Chisholm Ranch.

The Sampson Chisholm Trail was a very important trail to the railhead for about three years, and then the railroad was extended to Texas. Sampson Chisholm finally settled on what we now call Chisholm Ranch and with hired hands raised sheep and cattle until his untimely death in 1878.
 
By naming our new subdivision CHISHOLM RANCH we are paying tribute to this frontiersman who blazed an important cattle trail through this area when it was an untamed, remote and wild land.