Channel of Deep Creek
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Once a spring-fed tributary of the Colorado River; heads and ends within Scurry County. In 1870s it supplied buffalo hunters living in hide-covered half dugouts. "Pete" Snyder's trading post, which eventually grew into the county-seat town of Snyder, was located on bank. Although state surveyors had officially named it Culvers Creek, famous buffalo hunters John and J. Wright Mooar called it Deep Creek in 1876, and soon the name became widely used. Played central role in early town life as a scene of picnics, horse races, and baptisms. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Deep Creek was once a spring-fed tributary of the Colorado River that both began and ended within Scurry County. In the 1870s it watered buffalo hunters camped in hide-covered dugouts, and W. H. "Pete" Snyder's trading post on its bank grew into the town of Snyder. Though official surveyors named it Culvers Creek, the famed hunters John and J. Wright Mooar called it Deep Creek in 1876 and that name stuck, as the stream became the stage for the young town's picnics, horse races, and baptisms.
Why it matters
The creek marks the brief, transformative buffalo-hunting era that opened the West Texas plains to settlement and gave rise to a county-seat town.
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Related people
- · W. H. "Pete" Snyder
- · John Mooar
- · J. Wright Mooar
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
City of Snyder
Snyder, TX
Snyder began in 1878 as "Hide Town," a rough camp of tents and dugouts where buffalo hunters traded on Deep Creek, taking its lasting name from trader W.H. "Pete" Snyder. The railroad's arrival in 1908 knit it into the wider economy, but it was the 1948 discovery of the vast Canyon Reef oil field that transformed the quiet county seat into an overnight boom town, tripling its population in a single year.
First State Bank Building
Snyder, TX
Built in 1907-08 beside Deep Creek, where the trail of Gen. Ranald Mackenzie's U.S. Cavalry had once run, this Snyder landmark housed the First State Bank & Trust Co., an early bank serving West Texas cattlemen and ranchers. It closed during the depression year of 1931 and afterward sheltered many tenants, including the local newspaper. Its Ionic-columned Greek Revival exterior survives unchanged from the day it was built.
Home County of Famous Frontiersman J. Wright Mooar
Snyder, TX
Vermont-born J. Wright Mooar came west at nineteen and, with his brother, established the first buffalo-hunting camp in the Texas Panhandle in 1873. Over his career he shot an estimated 22,000 bison — including a rare albino whose hide his descendants still preserve — and later supplied game to railroad crews and turned to ranching. His marksmanship earned the respect of Comanche chief Quanah Parker, who became his friend.
Witness Tree
Snyder, TX
The hackberry stump across the street once served as a "witness tree" in the land surveys that carved up the West Texas frontier. Under Texas custom rooted in Spanish law, boundaries were fixed by natural and man-made witnesses and measured in varas and leagues, with grantees formally taking possession by shouting, throwing stones, and firing guns. When this land was first surveyed in 1873 for a railroad, it was still hostile country; surveyors worked with rifles on their shoulders, and only after buffalo hunters and Gen. Ranald Mackenzie's cavalry had cleared the plains did settlement follow.