Old Mobeetie Trail

The trail's destination began as Hidetown, a buffalo hunters' camp on Sweetwater Creek that grew up around Charles Rath and Bob Wright's supply store in 1874 and was named for the hides its residents built with. When a post office was sought in 1879, Mobeetie, possibly an Indian word for sweet water, was chosen. Fort Elliott's garrison included Black troops of the Tenth and Ninth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth Infantry during the 1880s. The town declined after the fort closed in 1890, lost the county seat in 1907 and moved two miles to the railroad in 1929.

What the plaque says

Old Mobeetie Trail (to early town, about 40 mi. NE) A road older than recorded history; carved out in centuries of wintertime travel to the south, spring migration to the north, by millions of bison and by Indians who lived by hunting these large animals. Important in era of Texas Panhandle settlement. Used in 1873-1874, when first lifelong residents put dugout dwellings in the Panhandle and began to hunt buffalo to fill demand for hides and meat. Fort Elliott, established 1875 to regulate Indians resisting white settlement, soon had as a neighbor the town of Mobeetie, which for some years was the county seat for 28 counties and a place to go for medical aid, supplies, and access to stage travel. In 1876 Kansans came this way south for better hunting, calling this "Rath Trail," for their leader. Also, in 1876 cattlemen began to bring herds here. By 1880 this ancient path was a southern arm of Jones and Plummer Trail, over which cowboys moved longhorns to railroads and northern cattle markets. Beginning about 1887 the Mobeetie Trail was used by "nesters" taking up farm lands alongside the old great ranches. Those it served founded and expanded agricultural-commercial economy of the Panhandle. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 12 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 13 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.
• Donley County Courthouse — 19 mi
  Bulger and Rapp's red brick and white stone courthouse of 1891, the oldest in use in the Panhandle, given back its third floor and towers in a 2003 restoration.
• Saints' Roost Museum — 19 mi
  Clarendon's county museum in the hospital Cornelia Adair built for JA cowboys in 1910, named for the nickname cowhands gave a Methodist town with no saloons.

More markers nearby

• Rowe Cemetery — 12 mi
• McLean Methodist Church — 13 mi
• Site of Dozier Schoolhouse — 14 mi
• Quail Cemetery — 14 mi