Goodnight-Loving Trail

North of the Pecos the trail kept changing. Loving first blazed the northern extension in the fall of 1866, from Fort Sumner up the Pecos to Las Vegas and along the Santa Fe Trail over Raton Pass to Denver. In 1867 Goodnight moved the route fifty or sixty miles east, past Capulin Mountain, though at Raton Pass "Uncle Dick" Wootton still charged him ten cents a head. Goodnight set up a ranch and relay station at the head of Apishapa Canyon, and in 1868 he contracted with John Wesley Iliff to deliver cattle at Cheyenne.

What the plaque says

Goodnight-Loving Trail Blazed from the Fort Griffin-Dodge City Trail, through New Mexico to Colorado about 1860 by Oliver Loving 1812-1867, first cattle trail driver from Texas.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Roy Orbison Museum — 26 mi
  A volunteer-run room in the oil town where Roy Orbison spent his high school years, opened on request, with a guitar he played and his tinted prescription sunglasses.

More markers nearby

• Route of Old Butterfield Stagecoach Road — steps away
• Mentone — 0.5 mi
• Loving County — 0.5 mi
• Oliver Loving, C.S.A. — 0.5 mi