MeatEater's American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883)

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling audio series Campfire Stories and MeatEater's American History comes a new audiobook original that immerses listeners into the brutal and unforgiving world of the professional buffalo hunters who drove America's most iconic wildlife species to the brink of extinction.

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) takes you deep into the blood-soaked world of the hide hunters who invaded the western frontier in the aftermath of the Civil War, killing and skinning millions of buffalo to supply a resource-hungry nation with an untapped source of leather. From the scorching plains of Texas to the frozen prairie of northern Montana, they lived a nomadic, hardscrabble existence punctuated by raging blizzards, desperate shootouts, agonizing thirst, stampeding herds, freakish accidents, and backbreaking labor. Little more than a decade after the slaughter began, the hide hunters had transformed the once-teeming buffalo range into a boneyard.

These forgotten marksmen weren't mythologized frontiersmen or celebrated explorers—they were displaced veterans, farmers' sons, and wanted outlaws, chasing adventure and opportunity in a world turned upside down by violence and financial insecurity. Their ruthless efficiency stemmed from industrial conditions unique to late-nineteenth century America: transcontinental railroads that connected the Western frontier to eastern cities, revolutionary innovations in long-range rifles, and an insatiable demand for factory belting–made from the skin of buffalo–at the dawn of the machine age. The Hide Hunters is more than a cautionary tale about overexploitation of the natural world. It is an essential chapter of our nation’s story—part survival epic, part ecological tragedy—that left an indelible mark on the American West.