DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to do it justice. Back in 1849, the United States Army sent a surveying expedition out into West Texas — and the man they put in charge was Captain Randolph B. Marcy.
Now, the staked plains of West Texas had a reputation. Dreaded, the marker says, and that word wasn't chosen lightly. This was terrain that had turned back plenty of folks who thought they knew what they were doing.
But Marcy had something most men didn't. He had Manuel — a Comanche Indian who knew this land the way most people know their own front porch. With Manuel guidin' the way, Marcy crossed those staked plains and came out the other side with something valuable: proof.
Proof that the staked plains were, in fact, feasible for travel. That was no small thing to put on paper in 1849. What Marcy plotted that year became a trail stretching all the way from Doña Ana, New Mexico, to Fort Smith, Arkansas — and once word got out that there was a new and shorter road west, well, you can imagine who came runnin'.
The California gold fields were calling, and Marcy's trail answered. Travelers poured along that route chasing their fortunes. Then came the overland stage, rolling along about a hundred and twenty-five miles of it, keeping that path worn and useful long after the gold rush fever cooled.
And then, in 1881, the Texas and Pacific Railroad laid its tracks along part of the very same route — iron rails following the line that one Army captain and one Comanche guide had scratched across the map more than thirty years before. Manuel led the way through country everybody else was afraid of, and Marcy wrote it down. The railroad just made it permanent.
What the marker says
Plotted in 1849 by a U. S. Army surveying expedition under Capt. Randolph B. Marcy. Guided by Manuel, a Comanche Indian, Marcy crossed the dreaded staked plains of West Texas, proving their feasibility for travel, and opening a new and shorter road west. Marcy's trail from Dona Ana, N. M., to Fort Smith, Ark., became a major road to the California gold fields. Later the overland stage followed it for about 125 miles and in 1881, Texas and Pacific Railroad built along part of the route. (1967)