DUANE
Duane's take
The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Charles Goodnight. Now, there are pioneers, and then there are the ones who seem to have been everywhere at once — the ones history keeps running into no matter which direction it heads. Charles Goodnight was that kind of man.
It starts right here, at Black Springs in the Keechi Valley, in 1857. Goodnight — born in 1836 — set down his first ranch on what the marker calls the extreme Indian frontier of Texas. Not the edge of settled country.
The extreme edge. That word is doing real work there, and you'd do well to sit with it a moment. Three years after planting roots at Black Springs, Goodnight was riding toward trouble again.
In 1860 he took part in the Pease River fight — the engagement in which Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured from the Comanches. Then came the Civil War, and while others chose sides and formed battle lines, Goodnight was serving as scout and guide for the Texas Rangers. The man knew the land, and the Rangers knew he knew it.
But 1866 — now there's a year that echoes. That's when Goodnight laid out the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail. Thousands of longhorns moved over that trail, driven to market in New Mexico, hooves raising dust across country that had no business being crossed at all.
His partner on that trail was Oliver Loving. And in 1867, at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, Loving died from wounds suffered in an Indian attack. What Goodnight did next is the kind of thing that gets told around fires for generations.
Without the aid of an undertaker, he carried the body by wagon through hostile Indian territory — all the way to Weatherford, twenty-four miles southeast of where you're sitting right now — so Oliver Loving could be buried properly. No undertaker. Hostile territory.
A wagon, a body, and a promise kept. Goodnight didn't slow down. He extended his cattle trails — north to Wyoming, west to Colorado, where he started a ranch near Pueblo.
Then in 1876, he established the first cattle ranch in the vast Texas Panhandle. That ranch became the JA Ranch, known internationally. From Black Springs to the Panhandle to the wider world — the trail just kept going.
And it wasn't only cattle on his mind. Goodnight got involved in the preservation of the area's native buffalo. He bred the first herd of cattalo — a cross between buffalo and range cattle.
The man was always thinking about what the land held and what it might become. Charles Goodnight was born in 1836 and lived until 1929. The marker says his pioneer efforts led to the development of the frontier and the Texas cattle industry.
That's understated in the way that only a stone marker can afford to be. The rest of us need a little more road to tell it right.
What the marker says
Here at Black Springs in the Keechi Valley in 1857, the celebrated pioneer open range cowman and trail driver Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) located his first ranch on the extreme Indian frontier of Texas. From here he took part in the 1860 Pease River fight when Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured from Comanches, he served as scout and guide for the Texas Rangers during the Civil War and in 1866 he laid out the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail, over which thousands of longhorns were driven to market in New Mexico. In 1867 at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, his partner Oliver Loving died from wounds suffered in an Indian attack. Without the aid of an undertaker, Goodnight carried the body by wagon through hostile Indian territory for burial at Weatherford (24 miles southeast). Goodnight extended his cattle trails to Wyoming and to Colorado, where he started a ranch near Pueblo. In 1876 he established the first cattle ranch in the vast Texas panhandle, which became the internationally known JA Ranch. Involved in the preservation of the the area's native buffalo, he also bred the first herd of cattalo by crossing buffalo with range cattle. Goodnight's pioneer efforts led to the development of the frontier and the Texas cattle industry. (1982)