Goodnight Trail

The town that grew at this watering place nearly had two homes. Childress City and Henry were platted about four miles apart on former OX Ranch land, and Childress City won the first county-seat election on April 11, 1887. The railroad's townsite agent, R. E. Montgomery, who owned half of Henry, favored his site; after the court voided the vote, the railroad offered Childress City lot owners lots in Henry and renamed Henry Childress. Businesses moved by September 1887. Walter P. Chrysler later worked as foreman of the railroad shops here in 1905 and 1906.

What the plaque says

Goodnight Trail In hostile Indian years of 1866-71, route of great cattle drives from Texas to U.S. forts in Colorado and New Mexico. Col. Charles Goodnight, trailblazer, drove thousands of cattle to water here. Site later (1886) became Childress. Cattle watering hole is now lake in Fair Park. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Childress County Heritage Museum — 0.6 mi
  A railroad division town's museum in its 1935 Spanish Colonial post office, in the town that won its county seat by renaming a rival and once employed Walter P. Chrysler.

More markers nearby

• Colonel Wm. Edgar Hughes of the Mill Iron — 0.4 mi
• Childress County — 0.4 mi
• Childress Army Air Field — 4.5 mi
• Hall County — 28 mi