The Shawnee Trail
Frisco, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1838 the Republic of Texas Congress appropriated money for construction of a north-south road opening the northern Texas area to trade. The project leader, Colonel William G. Cooke, followed an existing Indian trail which reached from the Red River to Austin. A supply fort established on the river near the trading post of Holland Coffee was named for Captain William G. Preston, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, who was in charge of troops stationed there in 1840. The part of the road running south from the Red River to the Trinity River crossing was known as the Preston Road. At the Trinity River crossing in 1841 John Neely Bryan began the settlement of Dallas. By the 1850s the road was known as the Shawnee Trail and was used by immigrants coming to Texas. It also served as a cattle trail, leading to northern markets. The number of cattle drives decreased as new trails were opened to serve the growing Texas cattle industry. Further decline occurred when rail lines were completed to the area in the 1870s. Lebanon served as an assembly point for cattle drives on the Shawnee Trail. Bypassed by the Frisco Railroad in 1902, the town declined. The post office, opened in 1860, closed in 1905. (1980)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1838 the young Republic of Texas funded a north-south road to open its northern reaches to trade, and surveyor Col. William G. Cooke laid it along an existing Indian trail running from the Red River toward Austin. The route's northern stretch became the Preston Road, and where it crossed the Trinity, John Neely Bryan founded Dallas in 1841. By the 1850s the whole path was known as the Shawnee Trail, carrying immigrants into Texas and cattle north to market until new trails and the railroads eclipsed it.
Why it matters
The trail shows how a Native American footpath became a nation-building road, seeding cities like Dallas and feeding the great Texas cattle drives north.
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Related people
- · Col. William G. Cooke
- · John Neely Bryan
Related events
- · Founding of Dallas (1841)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frisco Methodist Church
Frisco, TX
Frontier settlers and a Methodist circuit-riding minister organized this congregation in a log home in 1848, naming it Bethel Methodist Church and raising a first sanctuary on donated land in 1852. Its camp meetings grew so large that a shed was built to shelter them in 1888, and in 1902 the church followed the new railroad into the town of Frisco, renaming itself as it went.
Site of Lebanon
Frisco, TX
Settlers drawn to free land, spring water, and timber in the Peters Colony named their community Lebanon and won a post office in 1860. Sitting on the Preston Road and Shawnee Trail, it became a favorite stop for cattle drovers and grew through the 1880s and 1890s into a town of shops, churches, a hotel, and a two-story school. When the railroad bypassed it in 1902 in favor of nearby Frisco, residents drifted away, and by the 21st century only three original buildings remained.
T. J. Campbell House
Frisco, TX
T. J. Campbell built this cypress-sided home in 1869 in Lebanon, Texas, right on the old Preston Road as longhorn herds streamed north. When the railroad and mail line bypassed Lebanon, the Campbells simply moved the house to Frisco in 1902, dressing it up with gingerbread trim. For decades the pioneer merchant family served this corner of Collin County.
Allen
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Fertile prairie and reliable water had drawn settlers here since the 1840s, but Allen truly began in 1876 when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad built a water stop on Cottonwood Creek and platted a town, naming it for railroad founder Ebenezer Allen. In 1878 an outlaw gang said to be led by Sam Bass robbed the depot in what is often called Texas's first successful train robbery. Interurban electric rail arrived in 1908, and late-century growth in the Dallas metroplex swelled the town past 19,000.