58 Yards West to Routes of Historic Trails
Canadian, Hemphill County, Texas
Marker Inscription
During the mass slaughter of buffaloes in the Panhandle, two trails arose to meet the needs of the hunters and their ever-hungry markets. Started about 1876, both moved vast convoys of wagons across the plains. Charles Rath-- transporting gun powder, lead, tobacco, whiskey, and food staples-- blazed a road from Dodge City to the Double Mountains. In 2 years, however, the best hunting was over and the route fell into disuse. Ed Jones and Joe Plummer forged a trail from Kansas to Fort Elliott. Their route became a freight road and finally a cattle trail. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During the frenzied slaughter of the southern buffalo herds in the mid-1870s, two supply trails rose across the Texas Panhandle to feed hide hunters and their markets. Around 1876 Charles Rath blazed a road from Dodge City hauling powder, lead, whiskey, and staples toward the Double Mountains, though the best hunting was gone within two years. A second route forged by Ed Jones and Joe Plummer from Kansas to Fort Elliott outlasted the hunt, becoming first a freight road and finally a cattle trail.
Why it matters
These trails mark the violent, rapid transition of the Panhandle from buffalo range to cattle country, a turning point in the westward expansion that displaced the Plains tribes.
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Related people
- · Charles Rath
- · Ed Jones
- · Joe Plummer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Route of Marcy Trail
Canadian, TX
In 1849 the resourceful Army Captain R. B. Marcy blazed this overland route across the Texas Panhandle, best known as a branch of the great California gold trail carrying emigrants west. His wagon roads were later eyed in 1853 as the path for the nation's first transcontinental railroad, until the Civil War pushed that dream to northern routes. The trail's importance faded once the railroad finally reached the county in 1887.
Canadian River Trails
Canadian, TX
The trails along the Canadian River were ancient corridors of trade, hunting, and exploration long before Coronado followed them in 1541 chasing rumored cities of gold. Josiah Gregg led a Missouri trading party this way toward Santa Fe in 1840, and Captain R. B. Marcy escorted gold-seekers along the river in 1849. Through the 1870s and '80s hunters, cattlemen, and settlers used the same routes as the Panhandle was opened to settlement — a river whose name comes from a Spanish word for 'boxed-in.'
Former Site of Hogtown
Canadian, TX
Hogtown sprang up in 1886 as a tent city for the railroad gang laying the Southern Kansas line, earning its unflattering name from its rough, hogpen appearance. It was the forerunner of the town of Canadian, but when the landowner Sam Pollard and the railroad could not agree on a price for his land, the company simply moved the line across the river—and the people followed. The tent town was left behind, one of the West's many settlements that lived and died with the rails.
Fletcher and Donley Stage Station
Canadian, TX
In the 1870s and '80s, this stop northwest of present-day Canadian offered rest and mail service to wagon trains, buffalo-hide caravans, and cattle herds crossing the Panhandle. Run by former buffalo hunter-scout Ed Fletcher and his partners — all seasoned frontiersmen — the station was a sod-roofed log cabin flanked by a brush arbor and a pump. The area's first election was held here in 1882, on ground that would soon become Hemphill County.