The Chuckwagon
Day 11
Please see the next photo for a truly entertaining look at the chuckwagon.
But following is some standard history:
Charles Goodnight, co-founder of the JA Ranch, invented the chuck wagon in 1866 when he bolted a wooden box with compartments onto the back of an Army surplus wagon. He covered the box with a hinged lid that—when opened and supported by a single leg—became a worktable for mixing dough or slicing beef.
Inside the compartmentalized pantry, Goodnight stowed kitchen staples and equipment, including cast-iron kettles, pots, and Dutch ovens, a coffee grinder and 3-gallon coffee pots. The wagon also held bedrolls, guns, medicine, kerosene lamps, branding irons, tools, firewood, whiskey (for "medicinal purposes"), and a 30-gallon wooden water barrel.
Chuck wagons quickly revolutionized the cattle industry and were used extensively along cattle trails until the advent of railroads, refrigeration and barbed wire in the early 1880s.
The Chuckwagon
Day 11
Please see the next photo for a truly entertaining look at the chuckwagon.
But following is some standard history:
Charles Goodnight, co-founder of the JA Ranch, invented the chuck wagon in 1866 when he bolted a wooden box with compartments onto the back of an Army surplus wagon. He covered the box with a hinged lid that—when opened and supported by a single leg—became a worktable for mixing dough or slicing beef.
Inside the compartmentalized pantry, Goodnight stowed kitchen staples and equipment, including cast-iron kettles, pots, and Dutch ovens, a coffee grinder and 3-gallon coffee pots. The wagon also held bedrolls, guns, medicine, kerosene lamps, branding irons, tools, firewood, whiskey (for "medicinal purposes"), and a 30-gallon wooden water barrel.
Chuck wagons quickly revolutionized the cattle industry and were used extensively along cattle trails until the advent of railroads, refrigeration and barbed wire in the early 1880s.