Rath City

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Four miles southwest of where you're rolling right now, there's a story that rose up fast and disappeared just as quick — the kind of story the Texas plains have a talent for. It's the story of Rath City.

The year is 1876. The world wants buffalo hides. Not a few hides — an international demand, the marker says, the kind of appetite that moves men across hard country to set up shop in the middle of nowhere.

And one man answered that call: Charles Rath, born 1836, died 1902, a man who apparently looked out at this stretch of West Texas and saw not emptiness but opportunity. He founded the town. Opened the Rath, Lee and Reynolds Mercantile Store right there on the edge of the buffalo range.

His business model was about as simple as it gets — sell the hunters their supplies, buy back the hides they brought in. Feed the machine from both ends. Now here's the number that ought to stop you cold.

In 1877 — just one year in — there were one million, one hundred thousand hides sitting at his trading post. Say that slowly. One million, one hundred thousand.

Stacked and waiting. The town that grew up around all of that commerce went by two names: Rath City and Reynolds City, take your pick. It had a corral, a hide yard, a saloon, and a restaurant.

The hunters who worked this country slept under shelters made of stretched skins draped over poles. And out beside that corral, they built a tower — a lookout tower — to watch for Indian attacks. This was not a quiet, settled place.

This was a boomtown balanced on the edge of something dangerous, something that couldn't last. And it didn't. By 1879 — three years after Charles Rath drove his first stake — the buffalo were gone.

Just gone. And when the buffalo went, so did Rath City. The whole thing vanished, same as the herds.

One million one hundred thousand hides, a saloon, a restaurant, a lookout tower — and then nothing but wind. The plains out here don't hold onto things that don't belong. They just wait you out.

What the marker says

(4 mi. SW) In 1876 during an international demand for buffalo hides, Charles Rath (1836-1902) founded this town. He opened the Rath, Lee & Reynolds Mercantile Store. He sold supplies and bought the hides from the buffalo hunters. On one occasion in 1877 there were 1,100,000 hides at his trading post. The town, also known as "Reynolds City", boasted a corral, hide yard, saloon and restaurant. Skins stretched across poles sheltered the hunters. A tower beside the corral was used as a lookout to ward off Indian attacks. By 1879, the buffalo disappeared and the town vanished. (1979)