Randall County

Long before Leigh Dyer's herd, travelers crossed what became Randall County. Coronado's expedition passed through in 1541 and probably camped for two weeks in Palo Duro Canyon. Pedro Vial crossed the northeast corner in 1786 on his way from San Antonio to Santa Fe, and in July 1788 he and Santiago Fernández went through the canyon. Part of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition crossed near South Cita Canyon in 1841. Before organizing in 1889, the county was attached for government to Jack, Wheeler, Oldham, Donley and Potter counties in turn.

What the plaque says

Randall County Created 1876; named for Confederate general Horace Randall. Settled 1877 by rancher Leigh Dyer, brother-in-law of Charles Goodnight, man who brought first cattle to Panhandle. Organized in 1889. County seat: Canyon. Home of West Texas State University, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Palo Duro State Park, Buffalo Lake. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 1.1 mi
  The Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.
• Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 1938 Depression-era lake on Tierra Blanca Creek that has gone dry, now 7,664 acres of shortgrass, cottonwood canyon and a prairie dog town on the High Plains south of Umbarger.
• Palo Duro Canyon State Park — 13 mi
  The upper end of the canyon the state bought in 1933, where CCC crews built the road to the floor and the army burned the winter camps of the Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne in 1874.
• TEXAS Outdoor Musical — 13 mi
  A summer pageant of Panhandle settler life staged since 1966 in the Pioneer Amphitheater, built into a basin of Palo Duro Canyon below a 600-foot cliff.

More markers nearby

• T Anchor Ranch — 0.7 mi
• Col. John I. Gregg 1872 Battle Site — 0.7 mi
• Tex Randall — 1.0 mi
• Georgia O'Keeffe in Canyon — 1.1 mi