Jonathan Doan

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Jonathan Doan. Now, not every man who made his mark on the Texas frontier did it with a gun. Some did it with a ledger, a handshake, and a Quaker's steady nerve.

Jonathan Doan was that kind of man. He was born on May 20, 1837, and when the frontier came calling, he answered in his own peaceable way. Jonathan and his nephew, C.

F. Doan, came out of Ohio together and got into the hides trade in Indian Territory, somewhere in the years 1874 and 1875. Rough country, rough business, rough company all around.

And yet, a Quaker from Ohio found a way to move through it. Then came April of 1878. Jonathan Doan opened a trading post right at the spot where the Western Cattle Trail crossed the Red River, about twelve miles northeast of where you're sitting right now.

That crossing was a busy, dusty, consequential place. Longhorns by the thousand. Drovers with dust on their hats and money to spend.

Frontiersmen moving in every direction. Indians with their own commerce and their own watch on the land. Jonathan planted himself right in the middle of all of it.

That fall, his nephew C. F. Doan moved down to run the post.

Jonathan, for his part, kept on trading, kept on moving, kept working the frontier the way he always had. And here is what the marker wants you to know. Doan's store, and the whole Doan family, became famous and respected.

Not feared. Not tolerated. Respected.

Among the Indians, among the cattlemen, among the frontiersmen. On a frontier where trust was the scarcest commodity of all, a Quaker from Ohio earned it from just about everybody. Jonathan Doan died on November 6, 1902.

But the name he built out here on the Red River, that name held.

What the marker says

(May 20, 1837- November 6, 1902) Frontier trader and merchant; a Quaker, peaceable on troubled frontiers. With nephew C. F. Doan, came from Ohio and entered hides trade in Indian Territory, 1874-75. In April 1878 opened trading post at Western Cattle Trail crossing on Red River (12 mi. NE). C. F. Doan moved down that fall to run post. Jonathan Doan continued to trade on frontier. Doan's store and the family were famous and respected among the Indian, the cattlemen, and the frontiersmen. Recorded - 1972