Old Military Road
Canadian, Hemphill County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1874 - 1890) One of earliest known Texas Panhandle trails. Flint-pierced mastodon bones show prehistoric men trailed this valley before Indians were here. In 1875, U.S. Army came this way to Fort Elliott, at Mobeetie (30 mi. SW). Mail routes and stagecoaches used this trail, 1878-1890. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This valley route was among the earliest known trails of the Texas Panhandle, worn by travelers long before it carried its historic traffic. In 1875 the U.S. Army followed it toward Fort Elliott near Mobeetie, and from 1878 to 1890 mail carriers and stagecoaches used the same corridor. The road bound the isolated Panhandle to the outside world during its opening years.
Why it matters
Frontier trails like this were the arteries of westward settlement, carrying soldiers, mail, and travelers into one of the last regions of Texas to be opened.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
133 yards east to site of Historic Cottonwood
Canadian, TX
Long before highways crossed the Texas Panhandle, a single great cottonwood served as a guiding landmark for pioneers traveling the military and stage road nearby between 1870 and 1890. More than a century old and measuring 21 feet around, the tree stood as a living waypoint in an open landscape with few fixed markers.
Site of Old Springer's Road Ranch
Canadian, TX
On the 1870s freight and military trail linking Fort Elliott, Fort Supply, and Fort Dodge, A. G. Springer built a road ranch that became Hemphill County's first post office—famously connected to its corral by a tunnel from the dugout store. It was stagecoach stand, tavern, and supply house for teamsters and buffalo hunters, and a favorite stop for soldiers seeking a card game. In 1877 the poker-loving Springer and his partner Tom Ledbetter were killed in a gunfight with angry soldiers and buried at the ranch.
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.
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.