Burial Site of John S. Chisum

Chisum's grave in Paris closes a life spent mostly elsewhere. The Handbook of Texas says he died of cancer at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on December 22, 1884. His herds were tied to federal Indian policy: in 1866 he joined Charles Goodnight driving cattle to feed some 8,000 Navajo (Diné) at the Bosque Redondo Reservation near Fort Sumner, and that market vanished in 1868 when the army resettled them in Arizona. In 1875 he transferred more than 60,000 head to a St. Louis commission house that took over debts above $200,000.

What the plaque says

Burial Site of John S. Chisum (1824-1884) Cattle baron whose herds, moving from east to west Texas and into New Mexico, expanded into one of the greatest cattle spreads in the west. Coming from Tennessee to Paris, 1837, Chisum joined S. K. Fowler in a cattle venture in Denton County, 1854. During the Civil War, he supplied beef to Confederate troops west of the Mississippi and his cowboys guarded the frontier against Indians. After moving in 1864 to the Concho River, then to "Bosque Grande" on the Pecos, he finally located his spread at South Spring near Roswell, New Mexico, 1873. His enormous herds-- 60,000 to 100,000 head-- pounded trails across Texas into New Mexico. His name and fame led to confusion with Jesse Chisholm, blazer of part of the historic Texas-to-Kansas cattle trail. Chisum's onetime partner, famous cattleman Charles Goodnight, said that Chisum, who could correctly tally three grades of moving cattle at once, was the best counter he knew. Chisum's distinctive "Long Rail" brand and "Jinglebob" ear-notch defied alteration. A disastrous packing house deal and involvement in the 1876 "Lincoln County War," in which Billy the Kid and various cattle factions figured, ultimately led to Chisum's financial ruin. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 1.1 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Eiffel Tower — 2.7 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 22 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• Origin of the Paris Fire of 1916 — 0.5 mi
• Central National Road of the Republic of Texas — 0.5 mi
• Mt. Canaan Baptist Church — 0.8 mi
• The Paris Fire, 1916 — 0.8 mi