DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Jones and Plummer Trail. Now settle in, because this one's got buffalo hides, army generals, and a trail that kept reinventing itself all the way across the Panhandle. The Jones and Plummer Trail was established about 1874 — and right from the start, it had work to do.
The freighting firm of Ed Jones and Joe Plummer was hauling tons of buffalo hides out of their general store in Lipscomb County, loading them up and pushing north to Dodge City, Kansas. Tons. Not a figure of speech.
Tons of buffalo hides, rolling north across open country on a route that those two men carved into the land by sheer repetition. Now here's where the trail gets a little grander than a simple hide-hauling operation. In its early days, that same route was carrying crucial supplies to Generals Nelson Miles and Philip Sheridan during their famous 1874 Indian campaign.
The same ruts that carried commercial freight were feeding the United States Army in the field. And it didn't stop there. Materials for building Fort Elliott — out at Mobeetie — came over that trail too.
Once the fort was up, it became the southern terminus of the route, with Dodge City anchoring the northern end. You had a line drawn clean across the map, military post to cowtown, and everything that moved between them moved on Jones and Plummer's road. Then, as the years rolled on and the buffalo were gone and the Army's needs settled down, the trail shifted again.
Until 1885, it became a cattle trail. Same ground, different hooves. That's the Jones and Plummer Trail — established to haul hides, pressed into service feeding generals, built a fort along the way, and finished its run moving cattle.
Not bad for a stretch of dirt.
What the marker says
Established about 1874, when used by the freighting firm of Ed Jones and Joe Plummer to haul tons of buffalo hides from their general store in Lipscomb County to Dodge City, Kansas. Also, in its early days, this trail carried crucial supplies to Generals Nelson Miles and Philip Sheridan during their famous 1874 Indian campaign. Materials for building Fort Elliott, at Mobeetie, also came over the trail. The fort then became southern terminus for the route; Dodge City, northern. In its later years (until 1885), it became a cattle trail. (1968)