Canadian River Trails
Canadian, Hemphill County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Trade, exploration and hunting trails along the Canadian are older than recorded history-old when used 1541 by Spaniard Coronado hunting golden cities of Cibola. Route in 1840 for Josiah Gregg and 34 Missouri men with goods worth $25,000 headed for trade in Santa Fe. Used by 1849 parties escorted by U.S. Army Captain R. B. Marcy on way to California gold rush. Hunters, cattlemen, settlers used Canadian River trails in 1870s and 80s, as Panhandle was opened to civilization. River's name,"Canadian," came from Spanish for "boxed-in." (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.'
Why it matters
It traces a single river route through centuries of American movement, from Spanish exploration and the Santa Fe trade to the gold rush and the settling of the Panhandle.
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Related people
- · Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
- · Josiah Gregg
- · Randolph B. Marcy
Related events
- · California Gold Rush (1849)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
58 Yards West to Routes of Historic Trails
Canadian, TX
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.
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.
Glazier Cemetery
Glazier, TX
Glazier sprang up in 1887 when the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway reached the site, becoming a handy cattle-shipping point north of the flood-prone Canadian River. The Glazier Cemetery Association bought its ground in 1910, though the earliest burials date to 1906. The town endured hard blows—a 1916 fire that leveled its business district and a 1947 tornado that killed twelve—yet the cemetery still marks the community's history.