Western Cattle Trail Crossings at Fort Griffin, The

North of the Clear Fork the Western Trail crossed the Brazos at Seymour in 1879 and the Pease near the future Vernon in 1880. At Doan's Crossing on the Red River, trail bosses restocked their chuck wagons for the 150 miles to Camp Supply. That stretch ran across the Comanche-Kiowa-Apache and Cheyenne-Arapaho reservations, where soldiers escorted herds and drovers eventually paid a grazing toll. Beyond Dodge City, Kansas quarantine laws of 1876, 1877 and 1881 kept pushing drovers west toward Ogallala. At Albany, Jack Potter's 1883 Potter-Bacon Trail split off toward the Llano Estacado.

What the plaque says

Western Cattle Trail Crossings at Fort Griffin, The Cattle have been important to Texas' economy since early Spanish mission days. Before and after the Civil War, routes developed for driving herds through Texas to sell in Missouri and Kansas. The best known was the Eastern, or Chisholm Trail, but cattlemen continued seeking new trails and markets. In 1868, members of the Barber Watkins Reynolds family drove cattle to New Mexico and California from the Fort Griffin area.In 1874, John T. Lytle drove 3,500 head of longhorns from south Texas to Nebraska on a new trail, which he determined could sustain cattle to a shipping point at Dodge City, Kansas. The route became known as the Western, Fort Griffin or Dodge City Trail, and Fort Griffin served as an important watering and supply point. The trail began near Bandera and proceeded to Baird, where it fanned out at several points for optimum grazing. North of Albany, the route took drovers toward Fort Griffin, crossing the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in this vicinity (1/4 mi. N) and at other upriver points. Multiple paths continued northward, merged again and finally crossed the Red River in Wilbarger County.Two years later, between 73,000 and 108,000 head--about a quarter of Texas' northern-bound cattle--came through the Fort Griffin area. By 1879, as rail lines extended across the Eastern Trail area, the Western Trail became the primary Texas cattle route and continued as such until the last drive, led by John Blocker in 1893. By then, three to five million cattle had passed through this area on their way to northern markets. Cattle raising continues to be important in Shackelford County, a legacy of the early trail. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 0.8 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Old Jail Art Center — 15 mi
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 33 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.

More markers nearby

• Frontier Town of Fort Griffin — steps away
• Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Griffin — 0.7 mi
• Site of Camp Cooper — 8.4 mi
• First Christian Church — 12 mi