MS Mo 374 Elbert Seal - Bootlegging Cattle - a podcast by USM Center for Oral History

Elbert Seal was born in 1892 in Harrison County. He recounts how his mother began homesteading land in Carnes, Mississippi after the death of his father. After serving in World War I, Seal felt restless back on the family farm. He recalls how he and his cousin went to Kansas for a while to help harvest wheat.

In the early 1900s, several Southern states made it illegal to transport cattle across state lines in an effort to eradicate cow ticks. Seal describes how they would purchase herds of cattle in Alabama and “bootleg” them across the state to sell in New Orleans.



Elbert Seal passed away in August of 1974.

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