New Release - Cora Captures a Cowboy by Linda Hubalek

Cora Captures a Cowboy, book 4 in the Brides with Grit series is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This clean, sweet western romance features Dagmar and Cora, who have been side characters in previous books of this series.

Here's the tagline

She has four days to talk the cowboy into marrying her...or it's back to Boston as another man's bride.

And the Description

Bostonian Cora Elison arrives unannounced at her family’s ranch in Kansas, after her fiancé changed her status from bride to bridesmaid—at her own wedding. But after a few months, Cora thanks her lucky stars that he did because she has found a set of loyal friends, a way of life she relishes, and a cowboy she has become to love. 

Dagmar Hamner and his family emigrated from Sweden to work on a Texas ranch, working cattle and herding them north over the Chisholm Trail. After his family decides to settle permanently in Kansas in 1873, he is hired for the foreman’s job at the six thousand acre Bar E Ranch. 

All goes well for the Swedish cowboy until the absentee owner’s daughter arrives, wanting to learn how to become a rancher. Time makes them best friends, until a telegram arrives saying Cora’s parents are bringing an unknown groom to Kansas for her, insisting she be married when they arrive. 

Cora asks Dagmar to marry her, but he balks at her proposal. Between confusion and interference, will Cora be able to capture her cowboy in time to haul him to the altar?

You'll have to read Cora Captures a Cowboy to find out what happens to this fun-loving couple!

Now I'm writing Sarah, Ethan and Marcus story, Sarah Snares a Soldier, Book 5 in the series. This book will feature Fort Wallace in western Kansas so I'll post the history of this fort in next month's blog. 

Thanks for stopping by today at the Sweethearts of the West blog.

Linda Hubalek

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Cattle Drives to Ellsworth, Kansas in 1873 by Linda Hubalek

The setting of my Brides with Grit series is Ellsworth County, Kansas in 1873. Although I created the fiction town of Clear Creek for the story, there really is a "Clear Creek" running through the county. 

I picked this specific year because of the information I found on Ellsworth when it was a major cattle shipping town from 1872 to 1875.

In 1867, Abilene, Kansas became a shipping facility for cattle driven up from Texas, loading over 36,000 head of cattle in its first year. By 1871, the area was settled and the huge herds of cattle were no longer welcome because they trampled farmer's crops and spread Texas Cattle Fever to local cattle.

Cattle drives coming up the Chisholm Trail veered west to Ellsworth in 1872. The area was still native grassland and able to accommodate the grazing herds.

Ellsworth businessman anticipated the shift in the cattle trade from Abilene to their town, adding merchandise that the cowboys would need, or want, when they were done with the drive. It was reported that the Big Boot Company sold more than one hundred pairs of boots in the first months of 1874.

The Drovers Cottage, once owned by Joseph McCoy in Abilene, was moved to Ellsworth in 1872 to take advantage of the people coming into town. This hotel could accommodate 175 guests and its stable could hold fifty carriages and a hundred horses. 

Most drovers arrived in town in June and completed shipping by early fall. In the 1873 season, more than 150,000 cattle were trailed into Ellsworth. Over 30,000 of those cattle were shipped east, and the rest driven on to stock ranches further west. 

You could imagine how many cowboys were in town when each 2,500 to 3,000 head of cattle coming in, had a trail boss, ten cowboys, a cook and at least one horse wrangler with the herd. And you usually had three horses along for each cowboy.

So for a rough count, there were 150,000 head of cattle, 700 cowboys and 2000 horses coming into the little town of Ellsworth, although not all at the same time. What a gold mine for stores and saloons, although the trade lasted only a few years.

I'd love to have been in Ellsworth in 1873, but I'll research and write about it instead!

Dust, manure and flies...Ellsworth, Kansas in 1873, by Linda Hubalek

My latest book, HILDA HOGTIES A HORSEMAN, the third book in the Brides with Grit series, debuted this week. The setting of Ellsworth, Kansas in 1873, was easy to work with because it was a major cattle shipping town between 1872 to 1875. 

Abilene, Kansas was famous, being the first place to ship cattle by railroad to eastern towns in 1867, but that ended in 1871 when businesses and farmers got tired of the damage and disease the herds caused in the area.

Ellsworth, Kansas, 60 miles west of Abilene, became the new town to ship out of between 1872 to 1875. (The photo above is Ellsworth in 1873.)

One can find a vast amount of information on the internet about the cattle drives which went through Kansas in the 1870's. Here's some interesting tidbits, written by F. B Streeter in 1935, for an article in the Kansas Historical Quarterly.

As a means of advertising the new trail and the shipping points on the line, the Kansas Pacific issued a pamphlet and map entitled, Guide Map of the Great Texas Cattle Trail From Red River Crossing to the Old Reliable Kansas Pacific Railway. The writer has located only two editions of this pamphlet: one issued in 1872, the other in 1875. To quote from the 1875 edition:

Drovers are recommended to make Ellis, Russell, Wilson's, Ellsworth and Brookville the principal points for their cattle for the following reasons: Freedom from petty annoyances of settlers, arising from the cattle trespassing upon cultivated fields, because there is wider range, an abundance of grass and water, increased shipping facilities and extensive yard accommodations. Large and commodious hotels may be found in all these places, and at Ellsworth, especially, the old "Drovers' cottage," so popular with the trade for years, will be found renovated and enlarged. The banking house of D. W. Powers & Co., established at Ellsworth in 1873, in the interest of the cattle business, will remain at this point and continue their liberal dealings as in the past.

As stated above, Ellsworth became the principal shipping point for Texas cattle on the Kansas Pacific Railroad in 1872. The first three droves of longhorns that season arrived in Ellsworth early in June. These droves numbered 1,000 head each. Two weeks later a total of twenty-eight herds, numbering from 1,000 to 6,000 head each, had arrived and many more were on the way. The fresh arrivals contained a total of 58,850 head of longhorns. These, together with over 40,000 head which had wintered in the county, made a total of more than 100,000 head of Texas cattle in Ellsworth county. 

That season 40,161 head were transported from Ellsworth, or one fourth of the total number marketed over the Kansas Pacific...Besides those shipped by rail from Ellsworth, about 50,000 head were driven to California and the territories from that place. In the months of June and July more than 100,000 head of beef and stock cattle changed hands at Ellsworth. Drovers found buyers on their arrival, enabling them to close out at a good price and return to their homes.

The prices paid for cattle that season were as follows: $19 to $22 for beeves; $15 to $18 for three-year-olds; $9 to $10 for two-year olds; $12 for cows; and $6 for yearlings. 

My first thought on reading this? Wow! That's a lot of cattle to surround the town! 

My second? Dust, manure and flies...and a good setting for a western romance...

Here's the description for HILDA HOGTIES A HORSEMAN. Enjoy this new historical romance!

Ranch woman Hilda Hamner spent her youth traveling with her Swedish immigrant family as they drove cattle from Texas up to Kansas cow towns in the 1870s. Hilda decided to get off the cattle trail and bought an abandoned homestead in Kansas with her horse race winnings. She plans on raising horses—and finding a husband that doesn’t mind her tall, lanky body that’s usually dressed in men’s clothing. 

Noah Wilerson planned to bring his intended bride from Illinois back to the Kansas homestead he started for them, but found out his fiancée had already married someone else when arriving at her father’s doorstep. After traveling back home, Noah finds a woman has taken over his claim, leaving him homeless and jobless. 

Hilda realizes she needs help to make her horse ranch successful, and decides that Noah is the right man—to promote from horseman to husband on her ranch—if he’ll treat her as a special woman, and not just a ranching partner. 

Noah wants his homestead back, and the woman who has transformed the simple soddie into a family home. Between family dramas, outlaw danger, and butting heads, which one will hogtie the other to get to the church altar first?

Here’s the link to HILDA HOGTIES A HORSEMAN book on Amazon.  Enjoy!

Linda Hubalek

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