The Macabre Market for Buffalo Bones in the Wild West
What were buffalo bones used for in the American West? The answer might surprise you.
One animal dominated the American West in the 1800s. As many as 60 million buffalo roamed the West, vastly outnumbering people.
Buffalo provided food and shelter for Plains Indians. And many settlers made their living hunting buffalo to sell their skins and meat. The arrival of trains meant that buffalo hunters could ship their goods back east — which led to the buffalo massacres of the 1870s.
Millions of buffalo fell to Sharps rifles and Remingtons. Quickly skinned and butchered, buffalo carcasses were left to rot in the tall prairie grasses. Until scavengers realized that the buffalo massacre left behind another valuable commodity: buffalo bones.
Buffalo Hunters
The massive buffalo of the American West were no easy target for hunters. Standing over six feet tall and weighing over a ton, buffalo were an imposing sight on the plains. And they could move — bison can run over 30 miles an hour.
Native American tribes hunted buffalo from horseback, using bow and arrow to take down the beasts. Hunters chased buffalo into rock corrals where they could shoot the animals. They also chased herds over cliffs to immobilize them.
The arrival of the gun changed buffalo hunting. Suddenly, it was much easier for hunters to take down the mighty buffalo. Bill Cody, who became known as Buffalo Bill, spent two years hunting bison and killed more than 4,000. And some government officials targeted bison herds to deny Native American tribes a critical source of meat.
Hunting bison also became a popular sport.
The railroads brought hunting parties out West, where some even fired at the animals from moving trains. Men lined up on the roofs of trains to shoot herds that wandered close to the tracks.
Harper’s Weekly explained how it worked: “The train is ‘slowed’ to a rate of speed about equal to that of the herd; the passengers get out firearms which are provided for the defense of the train against the Indians, and open from the windows and platforms of the cars a fire that resembles a brisk skirmish.”
Soon, hunters were slaughtering hundreds of thousands of buffalo every year. A hunter named Orlando Brown claimed he’d killed 6,000 buffalo alone.
The Market for Buffalo Hides
Native peoples relied on the bison as a food source. Bison hide created clothing and shelters. Carved bones created knives and tools. And bison horns marked warriors in religious rituals. Even the tail hairs of buffalo served a purpose as decorative hair ornaments and fly swatters.
But when white settlers flooded into the West, the buffalo economy changed. While some hunted bison for their meat, others only wanted the hides.
Josiah Wright Mooar moved west from Vermont, taking a job hunting bison in 1870. Mooar shot Plains bison and sold their meat to soldiers in Fort Hays, Kansas. He also found a market among the workers laying track for the railroad companies. But then an order came in for 500 hides — a large number in the early 1870s.
An English tannery had decided to turn bison hides into leather. Americans had already given up on the idea, convinced that the thick hide was too tough for leatherworking.
Mooar was one of several hunters hired to fill the order. After sending his hides to England, Mooar had 57 left and nowhere to sell them. But if an English tannery could use the hides, why not American tanneries? Mooar sent the hides to his brother back East, recommending that his brother look for buyers at New England tanneries.
But Mooar’s brother never reached New England. When the shipment arrived in New York, he sold the hides immediately. Tanners had realized that while buffalo hides were hard to turn into boots, they were perfect for machinery belting. A booming industrial east needed bison hides quickly. And soon Mooar had an order for 2,000 more hides.
Hunters flocked west to meet demand “the moment it became known that here was a new industry promising great returns,” Mooar recounted.
The hide boom promised “buffalo gold,” with some hunters receiving over a dollar a hide.
“In the beginning,” recalled Fort Dodge commander Colonel Richard Dodge, “every man wanted to shoot. No man wanted to do the other work.” But you couldn’t strike gold by leaving the hides on the plains. Hunters soon joined up in outfits that included shooters, skinners, drivers, and a cook. While the teams focused on the hides, they also took the meat, packing it in salt and sending it east for up to 3 cents a pound.
But the booming trade left something behind: massive piles of buffalo bones.
Selling Buffalo Bones
“At nearly every station on the railroad last year could be seen piled up for shipment the chaotic anatomy of thousands of buffaloes,” reported The Daily Republican in 1885. And scavengers followed behind, collecting buffalo bones.
While hides and meat brought high prices, buffalo bones had an advantage — they were an excellent fertilizer.
In an era before chemical fertilizers, farmers turned to all sorts of natural fertilizers. Manure and wood ash were popular options. So was bat guano shipped in from the Pacific. And bone meal fertilizer was one of the most widely available options.
In fact, settlers slaughtered so many buffalo that their bones turned into an entire industry. Homesteaders collected bones to use as fertilizer. Thanks to its phosphorus content, bone meal fertilizer enriched the soil.
“For months car load after car load, to the number of thousands, passed eastward to Minnesota, Indiana, and Illinois, where they were turned to account as fertilizers,” the newspaper reported. “Even the skulls and bones that surveyors have stood up as sighting points have been picked up and carted off, such is the demand for them.”
Millions of buffalo bones marched across the prairies to the railroads, where freight trains carried them away to sell in the east. Just how many bones made the journey? Enough to fill nearly 5,000 boxcars every year.
An 1885 advertisement revealed the demand for bones. “Notice to Farmers: I will pay cash for buffalo bones . . . I want 5,000 tons this month.”
In addition to fertilizer, buffalo bones became gelatin and bone china. Cattle ate buffalo bones added to their feed as a calcium supplement. Bones turned up in vinegar, sugar, and wine. Instead of clarifying sugar and fermented liquids with wood ash, 19th-century industrialists turned to bone ash.
Bones even became integral parts of Western cities. In Topeka, the streets were “paved with buffalo skulls.”
And the buffalo bone economy stretched wider than the hide-hunting teams that crossed the prairies. Those operations left behind graveyards of bones for others to pick over.
Homesteaders took advantage of the bones on their land. The first task when breaking ground on new farms was often clearing out the bones lying in the grasslands. Children carted bones to town, where they sold them for a few dollars.
“Farmers and ranchmen, when they have nothing else to do, harness up their teams and go to gathering buffalo bones,” the New York Times noted.
Some of the bones made their way to rendering plants, where they were boiled, powdered, and charred. Others were turned into buttons or knives. Some even crossed the Atlantic to England, where factories devoured them to spit out consumer goods.
How much were the buffalo bones worth? One estimate claims that $40 million in bones went to processing plants.
The Buffalo Bone Bust
The market for buffalo bones barely outlasted the bison herds roamed the plains. In 1871, when Josiah Mooar discovered a market for bison hides, an estimated 12 million bison wandered the west. By 1880, that number had dropped below 400,000. And by the end of the decade, only a handful of bison remained.
“The buffalo melted away like snow before a summer sun,” lamented Colonel Dodge.
As the bison population dwindled, bones became the last commodity of the buffalo economy. “Here commerce steps in again to ask for something else,” the New York Times wrote, “the very last remnant there is left of an annihilated race.”
But even the bone industry dried up. In the 1890s, the price of bison bones shot up due to shortages.
When Americans rang in the new century in 1900, only around 300 buffalo still roamed the plains. Conservationists leaped into action, establishing preserves in Yellowstone National Park. Across North America, more than a century after the buffalo massacre, as many as 400,000 bison remain — a small fraction of the 60 million that once roamed the plains.
For more true stories of the Old West, check out Wild Life, a book on the outlaws, gamblers, and cowboys who made the West wild.
Bruce Wilson Jr. is the author of nine books on history. Visit Bruce Wilson’s website to learn more.
