Clifton House Site

Dodge City was not laid out until 1872, so the panel's line about materials hauled from there cannot be right for a house built in 1867. Tom Stockton's two-story adobe, also called the Red River Station, was leased in the 1870s as a Barlow and Sanderson stage stop with a blacksmith shop and stables, and a small settlement named Clifton grew around it. When the railroad reached Otero, two miles north, in March 1879, the stages stopped. An arsonist burned the empty building in 1885.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Clifton House Site Three-quarters of a mile west of here at the Canadian River cross- ing was the popular overnight stage stop on the Old Santa Fe Trail. Clifton House Site was built in 1867 by rancher Tom Stockton, with materials brought overland from Dodge City. For years it served as headquarters for cattle roundups. After aban- donment of Santa Fe Trail in 1879, it fell into disuse and burned.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. James Hotel — 25 mi
  Henri Lambert's 1872 inn and saloon on the Santa Fe Trail at Cimarron, a stage for the Colfax County War, where the old saloon ceiling still shows 22 bullet holes.

More markers nearby

• Women of the Santa Fe Trail — steps away
• Santa Fe Trail — 12 mi
• First Automobile in New Mexico — 17 mi
• Raton — 17 mi