Site of The MacKenzie Trail

Ranald Mackenzie's war record came before Texas. The Handbook of Texas says he graduated first in the West Point class of 1862, fought in eight major battles within two years and rose to colonel, then commanded in five battles in the Shenandoah valley. He finished the war a brevet major general with seven brevets and six wounds, and took custody of surrendered Confederate property at Appomattox. In 1867 he became colonel of the Forty-first Infantry, a newly formed Black regiment, and on February 25, 1871 took command of the Fourth Cavalry at Fort Concho.

What the plaque says

Site of The MacKenzie Trail Following the Civil War, the Texas frontier pushed westward, giving rise to renewed hostilities as the white man once again invaded Indian lands. Foremost in the campaign to calm the frontier was Col. Ranald S. MacKenzie, who blazed trails from Ft. Griffin to the Plains and from Ft. Concho to Palo Duro Canyon in the Panhandle. Tons of supplies for MacKenzie's forces--varying from 600 to 800 men--were freighted from Ft. Griffin to his main camp on the Brazos River fresh water fork (now White River), there dispersed to his troops. A second major trail was charted when his entire force moved from Ft. Concho to the Fresh Water Camp, passing a major campsite at MacKenzie Mountain (20 mi. N of Snyder). The Fresh Water Camp was one of the first made in the 1871 campaign in which MacKenzie was outmaneuvered by Quanah Parker (son of captive Cynthia Ann Parker and Comanche chief Pete Nocona). In 1874 it was also the last campsite used after MacKenzie totally defeated massed Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Quahadi Comanche forces in Palo Duro Canyon. Abstracts of the original townsite of Snyder, made in 1881, twice use "The MacKenzie Trail" as reference, setting its course across the Snyder Square. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Scurry County Museum — 2.5 mi
  Snyder's county museum on the Western Texas College campus, with the rifle used to shoot the white buffalo, an 1878 chuckwagon and the millionth barrel of the Canyon Reef oil boom.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 23 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 32 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.

More markers nearby

• Site of Store of William Henry (Pete) Snyder — steps away
• Site of Sanitarium of Alonzo Orrin Scarborough (1860-1952) Pioneer Doctor — steps away
• Santa Fe Railway in Scurry County — steps away
• Scurry County's Canyon Reef Oil Field — steps away