"The Buried City"
Perryton, Ochiltree County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1907, Dr. T. L. Eyerly, Floyd V. Studer and other archaeologists discovered here "The Buried City." These pueblo ruins were built by the Panhandle Pueblo Indians who were agriculturists, stone house builders, pottery and basket makers. Dr. Warren K. Moorehead partially excavated this ruin in 1919-1920. Some archaeologists and historians agree that the well-built stone houses were in ruins when Coronado explored this region in 1541. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1907 Dr. T. L. Eyerly, Floyd V. Studer, and other investigators uncovered what they called "The Buried City" on the Texas Panhandle plains — the stone ruins of villages built by the Panhandle Pueblo people, who farmed, raised stone houses, and made pottery and baskets. Dr. Warren K. Moorehead led a partial excavation in 1919–1920. Some scholars believe these houses already stood in ruins when Coronado passed through the region in 1541, placing their builders deep before European contact.
Why it matters
The site is a rare Panhandle window onto a settled, agricultural Indigenous culture that flourished centuries before Europeans arrived, complicating the myth of the plains as empty land.
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Related people
- · T. L. Eyerly
- · Floyd V. Studer
- · Warren K. Moorehead
- · Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of the Trading Post
Perryton, TX
C. E. Jones opened this trading post in 1874 along the Jones and Plummer Trail, the freight and cattle route running from Dodge City, Kansas, down to Mobeetie in the Texas Panhandle. At first it dealt food and cloth to Native peoples in exchange for hides; as ranching took hold, it became a supply stop for cattlemen hauling goods up from Dodge City. The State of Texas marked the site in 1936.
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Opened around 1874, the Jones & Plummer Trail began as a freight route hauling buffalo hides north from the Texas Panhandle to the railhead at Dodge City, Kansas. In the same violent year it carried supplies to the U.S. Army campaign against the Southern Plains tribes and hauled materials to build Fort Elliott near Mobeetie. As the buffalo vanished and ranching took hold, the old hide road became a cattle trail before fading out around 1885.
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In 1933 a Panhandle farmer plowing wheat turned up chalky bones far too big for any cow or buffalo. Local investigators, and later University of Texas scientist Dr. E.H. Sellards with WPA funding, uncovered the remains of several mammoths lying beside Clovis fluted spear points — one resting just inches from a mammoth's vertebra. The find placed human hunters and mammoths together at an Ice Age watering hole roughly 12,000 years ago.
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