Scyene Road, Old

Duane's take

Here's what the old marker has to say, and I'll tell it straight as the road itself. Once upon a time, and we're talkin' the 1840s and 1850s, there was a stretch of ground east of Dallas that folks were callin' Scyene. Named, if you can believe it, for a town in ancient Egypt.

Out here on the Texas prairie, somebody looked around at the post oaks and the red dirt and thought: yes, this feels like ancient Egypt. Well. They settled it anyway, and what grew up was a real, thriving town; post office, stores, a school, churches, the whole respectable arrangement.

And connecting it to the wider world was a road. Old Scyene Road. Before it was a road at all, it was a buffalo trail, which tells you something about how long this particular path has been carrying traffic across Dallas County.

That road ran west to Dallas, a full day's journey by wagon, and reached east all the way out toward Jefferson and Shreveport. It was one of the earliest roads in Dallas County, and for a good while, it was the road that mattered. Now, here's where the story gets interesting, because by the 1870s, Scyene had attracted a certain kind of traveler.

Belle Starr lived here. Jesse James lived here. Other outlaws too, the marker is careful to say; other outlaws.

They traveled this road. The same wagon-rutted, buffalo-worn stretch of dirt that the churchgoers and the storekeepers used. Makes you think a little differently about a road when you picture who else's boots were on it.

But Scyene's story has a quiet ending. In 1872, the Texas and Pacific Railroad came through Dallas County, and it did not come through Scyene. The railroad bypassed the town, and that was that.

The post office, the stores, the school, the churches; a thriving town, the marker calls it, and it was. Right up until the moment the future went a different direction. Old Scyene Road is still out there, though.

Still runnin' the same line it always ran. Buffalo, wagons, outlaws, and ordinary people; all of 'em on the same road, headin' the same directions. Some things in Texas have got more history in 'em than they look.

What the marker says

Once a buffalo trail, Scyene Road was one of the earliest roads in Dallas County. It linked the community of Scyene with Dallas, one day's journey by wagon to the west, and with Jefferson and Shreveport to the east. Named for a town in ancient Egypt, Scyene was settled in the 1840s and 1850s. During the 1870s, Belle Starr and other outlaws, including Jesse James, lived here and traveled this road. A thriving town with a post office, stores, school, and churches, Scyene declined after it was bypassed by the Texas & Pacific Railroad in 1872.