Old Town of Camp Springs
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for W. H. Camp, an early settler who built a dugout in 1878 at springs, one-half mile northwest of here. Petrified trees--one 300 feet tall--and bones of prehistoric animals have been found in area. Tools, pictographs in nearby cave indicate Indians camped here. Emigrant trail to California, blazed in 1849 by Army Captain R. B. Marcy, came through region. General Robert E. Lee followed part of same trail searching for hostile Comanches in 1856. Both men made camp at Green Springs, six miles southwest. Post office was established, 1891. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Camp Springs took its name from W. H. Camp, who dug in beside the springs in 1878, but the land's human story ran far deeper, with pictographs and campsites left by Indigenous people who sheltered in nearby caves. The great California emigrant trail blazed by Captain R. B. Marcy in 1849 passed through this country, and in 1856 Robert E. Lee followed part of that same route while patrolling for Comanches. A post office opened in 1891 as the settlement took hold.
Why it matters
This crossroads gathers layers of the West Texas frontier—Native encampments, an overland emigrant route, and the Army's uneasy campaigns—into a single stretch of land.
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Related people
- · W. H. Camp
- · R. B. Marcy
- · Robert E. Lee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Greene Springs and Site of Archeological Discoveries
Snyder, TX
Greene Springs has drawn people for centuries as the first live water flowing into the South Fork of the Clear Fork of the Brazos, its potholes fed by a steady sandstone-filtered flow. Native peoples left food-grinding holes and petroglyphs on the creek walls, and archeologists have since recovered stone tools, beads, and arrow points. In the 19th century, military expeditions under Capt. R. B. Marcy in 1849 and Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1856 camped here, followed by buffalo hunters and westbound emigrants; the springs were named about 1881 for rancher "Jim" Greene.
Site of The MacKenzie Trail
Snyder, TX
After the Civil War, the U.S. Army pushed to secure the West Texas frontier, and Colonel Ranald S. MacKenzie became the central figure in the campaigns against the Comanche and their allies. From forts like Griffin and Concho he blazed supply routes across the Plains toward Palo Duro Canyon, where in 1874 his troops broke the power of the Southern Plains tribes. The trail crossing near Snyder was so well known that the town's 1881 townsite abstracts referenced 'The MacKenzie Trail' as a landmark.
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.