The First North South Cattle Trail In Texas
The Shawnee Trail played a signficant role in Texas and beyond
in the early 1800s. A group of interested cities from Waco to
Pottsboro, and cities in between hope you enjoy some of the sights
and sounds that play homage to the Shawnee Trail in each of our
cities.
Of the principal routes
by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken afoot to railheads to the
north, the earliest and easternmost was the Shawnee Trail. Used
before and just after the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail gathered
cattle from east and west of its main stem, which passed through
Austin, Waco, and Dallas. It crossed the Red River at Rock Bluff,
near Preston, and led north along the eastern edge of what became
Oklahoma, a route later followed closely by the
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The drovers took over a trail long
used by Indians in hunting and raiding and by southbound settlers
from the Midwest; the latter called it the Texas Road. North of
Fort Gibson the cattle route split into terminal branches that
ended in such Missouri points as St. Louis, Sedalia, Independence,
Westport, and Kansas City, and in Baxter Springs and other towns in
eastern Kansas. Early drovers referred to their route as the cattle
trail, the Sedalia Trail, the Kansas Trail, or simply the trail.
Why some began calling it the Shawnee Trail is uncertain, but the
name may have been suggested by a Shawnee village on the Texas side
of the Red River just below the trail crossing or by the Shawnee
Hills, which the route skirted on the eastern side before crossing
the Canadian River.
Other Cattle Trails
Chisholm Trail
The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the late 19th century to
drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads.
Texas ranchers using the Chisholm Trail started on that route from
either the Rio Grande or San Antonio, Texas, and went to the
railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, Kansas, where
the cattle would be sold and shipped eastward.
Goodnight-Loving Trail
The Goodnight-Loving Trail ran from Young County, Texas, southwest
to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, up the Pecos to Fort
Sumner, New Mexico, and on north to Colorado. The trail was
sometimes known simply as the Goodnight Trail.
Western Trail
The Western Trail was also called the Dodge City Trail or simply
the Texas Trail. By 1879 the Western Trail was the principal
thoroughfare for Texas cattle bound for northern markets. Feeder
routes such as the Matamoros Trail from Brownsville and the Old
Trail from Castroville converged in Kerrville to form the Western
Trail.