MeatEater's American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883)
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MeatEater's American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883)
Narrated by:
Steven Rinella
Buy Now for $21.99
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Narrated by:
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Steven Rinella
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By:
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Steven Rinella
About this listen
Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) takes you deep into the blood-soaked world of the hide hunters who invaded the western frontier in the aftermath of the Civil War, killing and skinning millions of buffalo to supply a resource-hungry nation with an untapped source of leather. From the scorching plains of Texas to the frozen prairie of northern Montana, they lived a nomadic, hardscrabble existence punctuated by raging blizzards, desperate shootouts, agonizing thirst, stampeding herds, freakish accidents, and backbreaking labor. Little more than a decade after the slaughter began, the hide hunters had transformed the once-teeming buffalo range into a boneyard.
These forgotten marksmen weren't mythologized frontiersmen or celebrated explorers—they were displaced veterans, farmers' sons, and wanted outlaws, chasing adventure and opportunity in a world turned upside down by violence and financial insecurity. Their ruthless efficiency stemmed from industrial conditions unique to late-nineteenth century America: transcontinental railroads that connected the Western frontier to eastern cities, revolutionary innovations in long-range rifles, and an insatiable demand for factory belting–made from the skin of buffalo–at the dawn of the machine age. The Hide Hunters is more than a cautionary tale about overexploitation of the natural world. It is an essential chapter of our nation’s story—part survival epic, part ecological tragedy—that left an indelible mark on the American West.
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