Van Dorn Trail

Earl Van Dorn was born in Port Gibson, Mississippi, in 1820 and owed his West Point appointment to President Andrew Jackson. The Handbook of Texas calls him a poor student, often cited for misconduct, but a gifted horseman. He won commendations in the Mexican War at Fort Texas, Cerro Gordo and Mexico City, and in quiet times with the Second Cavalry he painted watercolors and raced horses. In 1861 he came back to Texas as a Confederate colonel and seized the Union ship Star of the West. He commanded at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, the next year.

What the plaque says

First important wagon road in Wichita County. Blazed by Brevet Major (later general) Earl Van Dorn in September 1858 with 200 men of the crack 2nd U.S. Cavalry. Just ahead of him went young L. S. "Sul" Ross (Governor of Texas 1887-91, and president of Texas A & M College, 1891-98) with 100 Indian scouts from the Brazos reservation. Loyal Tonkawa Chief Placido guided Ross and his party. After opening the trail, Van Dorn camped on Otter Creek, in present Oklahoma, for over a year. He routed the Comanches in a battle near Rush Springs (70 miles east), although he and Ross were wounded in the fighting. In 1859 Van Dorn won another decisive victory over the Comanches in Ford County, Kansas; famous persons in this battle were Kirby Smith (later a noted Confederate general) and Fitzhugh Lee (later governor of Virginia). They had recently ridden up the west branch of the trail. The 15-army wagons which brought supplies to the men leveled a trail much used by pioneer settlers who came afterward. The trail ran from Fort Belknap, near Newcastle, Texas, to Camp Radzminski on Otter Creek, north of Frederick, Oklahoma. At Van Dorn Crossing the road branched off to Montague County for supplies. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kell House Museum — 15 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 16 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Royal Theater — 21 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 23 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Site of Valley View School — 0.2 mi
• KMA Oilfield — 3.1 mi
• Maggie and Herod "Pap" Simpson — 5.6 mi
• First Methodist Church of Holliday — 5.8 mi