The Ozark Trail at Tampico

The man behind these obelisks was famous before he ever mapped a road. William Hope Harvey's 1894 pamphlet Coin's Financial School, an argument for free silver, sold about a million copies and gave him his nickname, and he campaigned for William Jennings Bryan in 1896. In 1900 he bought land near Rogers, Arkansas, for a health resort he called Monte Ne, opening its hotel in May 1901. He later planned a giant time-capsule pyramid there that was never built, and in 1932 he ran for president on his own Liberty Party ticket, receiving about 53,000 votes.

What the plaque says

The Ozark Trail at Tampico In 1913, William Hope "Coin" Harvey, who operated a resort in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, founded the Ozark Trail Association as a private highway organization. Several Texas and New Mexico counties joined the effort, and the line went diagonally from St. Louis, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. As part of Harvey's plan, stops along the way featured white obelisks denoting, in the official Ozark Trail green lettering, town names, as well as directions and distances to other towns. The central Ozark route passed across Wellington, Texas, and a second southern route was built through the communities of Childress, Estelline, Tampico, Turkey, Quitaque, Silverton, Tulia, Nazareth and Dimmitt. J.E. Swepston of Tulia, elected Ozark Trail Association president in 1920, was instrumental in having the striking road markers placed in this area. At the time, Hall County had more than 1,000 farms and ranches, and ranchland continued to be divided into farms as more settlers arrived in the area. In 1924, however, with a government initiative to enact a national road-numbering system, the Ozark Trails and other private highways were abandoned or absorbed into the national road system. Adjacent to the Tampico marker was a service station and general store. In 1929, the Tampico oilfield started a short-lived boom in the community, which supported a school. After the oil supply proved minimal, the school consolidated into the Turkey school district. The obelisk, designated a State Archeological Landmark in 1999, remains as a tie to both the early efforts to increase automotive travel and to the community of Tampico. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bob Wills Museum — 8.7 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.
• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 16 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.

More markers nearby

• First Methodist Church of Turkey — 8.5 mi
• Bankhead Highway in Turkey — 8.6 mi
• Gasoline Cotton Gin — 16 mi
• Lake Theo Folsom Bison Kill Site — 17 mi