How Commercial Buffalo Hunting Worked

In the mid to late 1800s, commercial buffalo hide hunting became one of the most destructive and lucrative industries on the American frontier. Unlike the subsistence hunting practiced for centuries by Native American tribes, commercial hide hunting was driven entirely by market demands and industrial processes—specifically, the demand for tough, durable leather and robes in the East and in Europe.

The process began with professional hunters—often Civil War veterans, frontiersmen, or opportunistic adventurers—who traveled westward to the Great Plains, where millions of American bison roamed. These hunters operated from mobile camps or frontier outposts, often supported by a crew that included skinners, teamsters, cooks, and guards. A single hunting party could kill dozens or even hundreds of bison in a single day.

Hunters typically used large-caliber rifles, such as the Sharps .50 caliber “buffalo gun,” which could accurately kill from over 300 yards. They aimed for precision, often targeting lead animals or females to disrupt herd cohesion. Once a few animals were down, the rest of the herd would sometimes mill about in confusion, allowing hunters to continue shooting without causing a stampede. This method, known as “stand hunting,” was devastatingly efficient.

After the animals were downed, skinners moved in quickly to strip the hides. They worked swiftly, sometimes in harsh weather, and used large knives to remove only the most valuable part of the animal—the thick, durable hide. In many cases, the rest of the carcass, including the meat, was left to rot. This waste was not due to necessity, but because the profit was in the hides and the bone market, not in feeding communities.

The hides were then stacked, dried, and transported by wagon to railroad depots, often hundreds of miles away. From there, they were shipped east to tanneries where they were processed into industrial leather—used for belts in factory machinery, harnesses, and military gear. Buffalo bones, too, became a secondary industry; once the herds had been nearly wiped out, “bone pickers” scoured the plains to collect skeletons for use in fertilizer and refining processes.

The scale of slaughter was enormous. It’s estimated that between 1872 and 1874 alone, over four million bison were killed primarily for their hides. This rapid exploitation, combined with the encroachment of railroads and settlers, led to the near-extinction of the species by the late 1880s. Commercial hide hunting devastated Native economies and cultures, which had depended on the bison not just for food, but for clothing, shelter, tools, and spiritual life.

In the end, commercial buffalo hunting was not just an industry—it was a calculated, market-driven eradication campaign, one that served U.S. expansionist aims and industrial appetite while permanently altering the ecological and cultural fabric of the Plains.

To learn more about the impact and history of the buffalo hunters, check out the HOKC episode linked below. Brought to you by History At The OK Corral: Home Of History’s Greatest Shootouts & Showdowns!