Texas rancher (牧场主) Charles Goodnight had a problem. He needed skilled cowboys to drive his herd of two thousand longhorn cattle to New Mexico to be sold. He couldn't offer high wages. He couldn't promise easy jobs or even nice weather. But he decided that decent, warm meals might entice men to work for him.
In the mid-to-late 1800s, cattle drives sometimes took three to four months, and once the drive began, there were no stores for hundreds of miles. All the food and supplies needed for the trip were carried on two-wheeled carts. Usually, the cowboy's food was boring and unappetizing.
Goodnight went to work and solved the problem. His invention of a mobile kitchen, the chuck wagon (四轮马车), got its name from the cowboy word for food, "chuck." Goodnight took an old army wagon and rebuilt it with Osage orange, a wood so tough that Indians used it to make bows. The wagon's iron axles were stronger than the wooden ones found on standard wagons, and the wider wheels lasted longer. Besides food, coffee sugar and eating utensils, it held everything from first-aid supplies to needles and thread. It even contained cooking stove.
The first chuck wagon was an instant success. Eighteen cowhands joined Goodnight and his partner, Oliver Loving, to drive the cattle to New Mexico for a handsome profit. The route they took—later called the Goodnight-Loving Trail—became one of the most heavily used cattle trails in the Southwest.
The chuck wagon soon was the backbone of all successful cattle drives. Other ranchers created their own moving kitchens, and eventually the Studebaker Company produced chuck wagons that sold for $75 to $100 apiece, about $1,000 today.
The chuck wagon was much more than a mobile kitchen. Sometimes called "the trail drive's mother ship," it was like a magnet that drew the men together. The wagon and the ground around it were the cowboy's home. There he enjoyed hot meals, a warm fire, and good companionship. He could also get a bandage, a haircut, or horse liniment for his sore muscles. And there, under the stars and around the chuck wagon, he crawled into his bedroll each night.
