John Wayne got it all wrong.

John Wayne got it all wrong.  Well, I really can’t blame him. It is more the cockeyed movie producer’s fault that led us astray; thinking that Jesse Chisholm moved cattle from southern Texas to the rail heads in Abilene, Kansas. Chisholm was many things, but little of it ever involved moving cattle. He was born from a Scottish father and Cherokee mother, and worked on behalf of the United States government to contact the plains Indians as an interpreter and help coordinate Indian treaties.  

​Think of him really as the entrepreneur of the prairie; he was a fur trader, a scout, and established many trading posts.  
The Chisholm Trail is named after him because he established a route to go from one trading post to the next which eventually became the cattle trail.  Over 5,000,000 head of cattle came over the Chisholm Trail from south Texas to Abilene, Kansas. This year marks the 150th anniversary beginning the great migration of cattle.  This event is dear to my heart, as the farm my husband and I live on is on the Chisholm Trail.  

​To celebrate this anniversary, and the Pat Hennessey Days, Prairie Quilt is holding a quilt show in conjunction with the Pat Hennessey Days festival in our small town of Hennessey, OK.  It will be held at Baptist Community Building at 122 S Cherokee St, Hennessey, OK 73742 from 10 to 2 on Saturday, August 12th. 

​This show is open to the public and will feature antique quilts along with new quilts.  Martha Ray will be doing a bed turning at 1:00, showing many quilts in that era and telling the stories behind them.  She is a spellbinding story teller, this is one event you will not want to miss. 

The quilt on the left belongs to Jennifer Mangus, and will be on display along with many other beautiful quilts during our quilt show.