Historical Marker · No. 128
The Texas Trail
Perkins County · Nebraska
Erected by Perkins County Historical Society and Nebraska State Historical Society
Andy Adams put this dry stretch into The Log of a Cowboy (1903), the story of a Circle Dot herd that sets out on April 1, 1882, for the Blackfoot Agency in Montana. In his chapter "Ogalalla" the drive from the head of Stinking Water to the South Platte is a waterless forty miles, made by watering in mid-forenoon and reaching water the next evening. On the second afternoon train smoke hangs ahead, and from the last divide the riders see Ogalalla, "the Gomorrah of the cattle trail," three-fourths of its businesses dance halls, gambling houses and saloons.
What the plaque says
The Texas Trail After the Civil War, herds of Texas cattle were driven north to marketing points in eastern Nebraska, but settlement by homesteaders forced the trail farther west each year. Beginning in 1875, Union Pacific selected Ogallala as its main shipping point. During the following decade, thousands of longhorn cattle were trailed through Perkins County, in this vicinity. Beginning in Texas the trail turned northward through the Indian Territory into western Kansas. From Dodge City on the Arkansas River, the trail continued to Buffalo Station, Kansas, entering Nebraska in Hitchcock County. The hardest day's drive for the trail-weary men and cattle was the 30 miles from the head of Stinking Water Creek in southeast Perkins County to Ogallala on the South Platte; it was the longest and driest drive of the trip. In 1876 over 60,000 Texas cattle were driven over the trail, and between 1879 and 1884 over 100,000 cattle made the trip each year, with the last great drive occurring in 1884. Due to settle- ment in the counties to the south, as well as in Perkins County, the last drives were made through the western part of the county. Perkins County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society
Where it stands
40.85003, -101.53754 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Lake McConaughy and Kingsley Dam — 25 miNebraska's largest reservoir, 22 miles of North Platte water and white sand beaches behind a 1941 hydraulic-fill dam, built so farms far downstream could water their crops.