Great Western Cattle Trail

The first herd's road through the Hill Country began on March 16, 1874, when John T. Lytle and Tom McDaniel left South Texas with eighteen men, 100 horses and 2,600 longhorns. They swam the cattle across the Medina below Castroville and stopped at Comanche Creek in Mason County to receive and brand 1,000 more. From Bandera the herd went to Kerrville, crossed the James River near Noxville in Kimble County and the Llano at Beef Trail Crossing near London, then the San Saba at Pegleg Crossing in Menard County. Lytle later partnered with Charles A. Schreiner of Kerrville.

What the plaque says

Great Western Cattle Trail The Great Western Cattle Trail (also known as the Old Texas Trail and the Dodge City Trail) was the longest of all 19th century trails used to drive cattle from Texas to distant markets. In 1874, Capt. John T. Lytle and other cowboys led 3,500 cattle from south Texas to Fort Robinson, Nebraska. This path became the Great Western Cattle Trail, one of the most frequented routes for driving cattle across the country. Although the trail was less well-known than the Chisholm Trail, the Great Western Cattle Trail carried cattle for longer than all other trails. Over time, more than seven to ten million longhorns, one million horses and 30,000 cowboys used the trail, according to conservative estimates. The Great Western trail began near Bandera and extended north through Dodge City, Kansas to Ogallala, Nebraska, the Dakotas and into Canada. Bandera served as an ideal staging and departure point because of its plentiful water and grass for cattle. The cattle market fulfilled the Northeast's high demand for beef, created cattle companies, enterprises and towns along its path and helped revitalize Texas' post-Civil War economy. Between 1855 and 1890, more than 950 cattle marks and brands were registered in Bandera County. The Great Western Cattle Trail began to lose popularity in 1885, when diseased cattle from Texas prompted many northern states to ban the importation of Texan cattle in warm months, and when increased barbed wire fencing limited cattle drive mobility. The last known drive on the trail occurred when John Rufus Blocker traveled to Deadwood, South Dakota in 1893. In 2004, the Great Western Cattle Trail Association placed its first marker in an effort to place cement markers every six miles along the route. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Times Museum — steps away
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Treue der Union Monument — 19 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Schreiner Mansion — 23 mi
  The 1879 downtown home of Charles Schreiner, the Alsatian-born merchant, banker and rancher whose store and mohair trade built Kerrville.

More markers nearby

• Bandera, "Cowboy Capital of the World" — steps away
• Camp Montel, C.S.A. — steps away
• Mormon Settlers in Bandera County — steps away
• Old Texas Ranger Trail — steps away