58 Yards West to Routes of Historic Trails

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, fifty-eight yards to the west of where you're rolling right now. Now settle in, because this one goes back to the days when the Panhandle sky was dark with dust and the sound of rifles never quite stopped echoing. During the mass slaughter of buffaloes in the Panhandle, two trails arose to meet the needs of the hunters and their ever-hungry markets.

That's the plain truth of it, and it's worth sitting with for a second. The hunting was industrial. The hunger for hides was relentless.

And the plains, wide as they were, needed roads. So the roads came. Started about 1876, both of these trails moved vast convoys of wagons across the open country.

Now think about what it took to keep an operation like that alive out here. Charles Rath blazed a road from Dodge City all the way down to the Double Mountains. And what was he hauling?

Gunpowder, lead, tobacco, whiskey, and food staples. Everything a hunting outfit needed to keep working, keep shooting, keep sending hides north to those hungry markets. But the Panhandle buffalo, it turns out, could only take so much.

In two years, the best hunting was over. And just like that, Rath's road fell into disuse. Two years.

That's all it took to go from blazing a trail to watching it go quiet. Meanwhile, Ed Jones and Joe Plummer were building something with a little more staying power. They forged a trail from Kansas down to Fort Elliott.

Now where Rath's road rose and fell with the buffalo, the Jones and Plummer route kept right on working. It became a freight road. And then, it became a cattle trail.

Same plains. Different purpose. The buffalo were gone, but the land kept moving people and goods across it, one trail at a time.

Fifty-eight yards that way, if you want to stand right where those wagon wheels once rolled.

What the marker says

During the mass slaughter of buffaloes in the Panhandle, two trails arose to meet the needs of the hunters and their ever-hungry markets. Started about 1876, both moved vast convoys of wagons across the plains. Charles Rath-- transporting gun powder, lead, tobacco, whiskey, and food staples-- blazed a road from Dodge City to the Double Mountains. In 2 years, however, the best hunting was over and the route fell into disuse. Ed Jones and Joe Plummer forged a trail from Kansas to Fort Elliott. Their route became a freight road and finally a cattle trail. (1969)