The Buffalo Train Ride

On October 11, 1907, three men climbed inside two livestock cars with fifteen woolly buffaloes.They were about to make the most memorable trip of their lives. Bronx Zoo photographer Elwin Sanborn lay on a bed of hay. Next to him stood a wooden crate with a huge bull inside. Suddenly, through the slats, snaked a long, narrow tongue. It wrapped itself around a thatch of hay and jerked. Sanborn sat up with a start. He decided his bad-mannered roommate could have all the hay he could eat. No one wanted trouble. Only a wooden box separated Sanborn from a powerful set of horns. But, what an adventure! Sanborn, and the other two men, were traveling from New York City to Oklahoma Territory to save the bison from extinction. . . if all things happened as planned.The Buffalo Train Ride tells how people from New York, Washington, D.C., and Oklahoma banded together to save the regal buffalo from extinction. Human heroes battled train troubles, dangerous wolves, and the Texas fever disease to save the bison from going the way of the dinosaurs.Forty to sixty million bison once covered most of North America. By 1889, only a 1,000 remained. William Hornaday, Director of the Bronx Zoo in New York City, worked with President Theodore Roosevelt and leaders in Oklahoma Territory. Together they created the first federal bison refuge in the United States. Nine females and six males boarded a steam-powered train in October 1907.Middle grades, ages 9-13 6