Red River Station
Bowie, Montague County, Texas
Marker Inscription
"Jumping-off point" on the famous Chisholm Cattle Trail, (1867-87), Red River Station was a main crossing and last place on trail to buy supplies until Abilene, Kan.--350 miles north. During the cattle drive era of Western history, millions of animals swam the turbulent river here en route to Kansas railhead and markets. An abrupt bend in the river checked its flow at this point, creating a natural crossing which had been used for years by buffalo and Indians. Even so, the water was wide, swift, and sometimes clogged with sand bars. Frequently cattle were so jammed cowboys could walk across on their backs. Besides a cattle crossing, the station was an outpost of the frontier regiment, which patrolled Texas' northernmost border during Confederacy (1861-65). During cattle era, a town began here, its ferry serving drovers, soldiers, freighters, and settlers returning from Indian captivity. Local cemetery (1 mi. SE) contains many graves of these Texas pioneers. (1971)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For two roaring decades after the Civil War, Red River Station was the last Texas outpost on the Chisholm Trail—the final place to lay in supplies before a 350-mile drive north to the Kansas railheads. A natural bend slowed the river enough to make a crossing that buffalo and Indians had used for generations, and here millions of longhorns churned across water so crowded that cowboys reportedly walked over on the cattle's backs. A town, ferry, and frontier-regiment outpost grew up around the ford before the trail era faded.
Why it matters
The great cattle drives stitched the postwar Texas range to national markets and became one of the enduring legends of the American West.
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Related events
- · Chisholm Trail cattle drives
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Early Trails in Montague County
Ringgold, TX
Sitting on the natural line of travel from the United States toward Mexico and the West, this county was once laced with historic roads. The Chihuahua Traders Trail of 1840, the ill-fated Texan-Santa Fe Expedition of 1841, and Captain Randolph Marcy's 1849 California Trail all left their tracks here, soon joined by the Butterfield Overland Mail and feeder branches of the Chisholm cattle trail. By 1882 the first railroad traced much of the old Santa Fe route, and modern Highway 82 still follows Marcy's path.
Illinois Bend Memorial Cemetery
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A community rose here on the Red River around the start of the Civil War, and after the war nearby Red River Station became a favored crossing where Longhorn herds forded on the Chisholm Trail. Known first as Maxwell or Wardville, it took the name Illinois Bend—for some settlers' home state—by 1877, growing to include schools, stores, a cotton gin, churches, and river ferries. Its burial ground, with the earliest marked grave from 1873, remains cared for by a local cemetery association.
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Built of native stone in 1873, the Stonewall Saloon was Saint Jo's first permanent building and a welcome rest stop for cowboys driving cattle up the trail through North Texas. After county prohibition arrived in 1897 it traded whiskey for ledgers, housing offices and a bank, and it was named for Confederate general "Stonewall" Jackson. Stuccoed in the 1930s and given a wooden facade in 1964, it still anchors the town square.
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