Route of Coronado Expedition

The expedition's chroniclers described the canyons where it divided as "barrancas like those of Colima," which the Handbook of Texas identifies with present Palo Duro and Tule canyons. There Coronado held a council of his captains. While he rode north, the main army under Tristán de Luna y Arellano turned back toward the Pecos, passing salt lakes and reaching the river thirty leagues below its bridge, apparently near later Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The canyon country then belonged to bands of Apache who had no horses yet and lived largely on buffalo.

What the plaque says

Route of Coronado Expedition Led by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, this trail-blazing expedition set out from Mexico City in 1541 in search of Cibola, fabled 7 Cities of Gold. Finding only Indian pueblos, Coronado changed his course for Quivira, a supposedly wealthy Indian kingdom. This quest brought the entourage across the Panhandle plains to present Tule Canyon. Then with 30 men, Coronado went north by "Needle Point" -- a route taking in Palo Duro Canyon and present Armstrong County, via Claude. He next continued into Kansas, but failing to find riches, returned to Mexico in 1542. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Gem Theatre — steps away
  Claude's small-town movie house of 1915, restored by the Armstrong County Museum and remembered for the scene in Hud where Homer and Lonnie Bannon sing along to Clementine.
• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The two-story house the Goodnights moved into on December 27, 1887, after leaving the JA, with a porch that looks over bison descended from the calves Mary Ann saved.
• Carson County Square House Museum — 16 mi
  The 1880s ranch cottage that is the oldest house in the town of Panhandle, at the heart of a twenty-one-building museum of the plains from mammoth hunters to the oil boom.
• Lighthouse Trail — 21 mi
  The park's most walked trail, 2.8 miles each way across the canyon floor to the Lighthouse, a hoodoo of Triassic sandstone balanced on a pedestal of softer red shale.

More markers nearby

• Dr. and Mrs. Wm. A. Warner — steps away
• Town of Claude — steps away
• Boy Scout Troop No. 17 — steps away
• Great Panhandle Indian Scare of 1891 — steps away