DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, straight off the post in Camp County. Now, long before any settler wagon ever creaked through this corner of East Texas, there was a route — the Cherokee Trace — an Indian trading road running all the way to Arkansas and Oklahoma. And the way it came to be is worth every mile of the telling.
It started with a Cherokee tribesman and a keen sense of direction. He pulled buffalo hides behind his horse, dragging them through the tall grass, pressing it down flat, laying the path forward one stride at a time. Then groups of Indians followed behind, blazing the trail proper — clearing logs, cutting back underbrush, marking the fords where water could be crossed safe.
Others ranged out ahead or to the sides, locating springs and good camping places, stitching together the whole long road into something a traveler could trust. But here's the part that stays with you. When the work was done, when the route was established, the Cherokees planted roses and honeysuckle along the trace.
Not a fence, not a monument — flowers. And those roses and honeysuckle still mark the old trace today, long after the Cherokees were driven out of the land they had mapped and planted and made passable. Settlers came into Texas by this very route after that.
The first residents of what is now Camp County lived right on this trail. A road made by people who were forced from it, still wearing their flowers.
What the marker says
This Indian trading route to Arkansas and Oklahoma was laid out by Cherokees. A tribesman with a keen sense of direction pulled buffalo hides behind his horse to press down the tall grass. Groups of Indians followed blazing the trail, removing logs and underbrush, and marking fords. Others located springs and good camping places. After the road was established the Cherokees planted roses and honeysuckle which still mark the old trace. After the Indians were driven out, settlers came into Texas by this route. The first residents in Camp County lived on the trail. (1979)