Texas Trail

The brands cut in two columns beneath the steer's skull are the herds this stone means. The 101 belonged to the Standard Cattle Company, which ran cattle near Moorcroft and in Montana; the XIT was the Texas ranch of the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, organized in London in 1884; SH Connected was the Northern Cattle Company's, on the Little Powder River; T7 was a Campbell County brand. Several recur on the Texas Trail Monument at Pine Bluffs, raised in 1948 with the families of the Snyder brothers, who first trailed Texas cattle into Wyoming in 1866.

What the plaque says

Texas Trail 1866-1897 Along this trail passed herds of cattle from distant Texas to replace the fast vanishing buffalo and build a civilization on the north-western plains

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Devils Tower National Monument — 25 mi
  A plug of gray-green igneous rock cooled into columns 40 million years ago, first climbed on a stake ladder in 1893, where a parachutist was stranded for six days in 1941.

More markers nearby

• Devils Tower — 24 mi