DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this stretch of Texas ground — and it's quite a stretch, literally. These ruts you're looking at, running off to the northeast and southwest, have earned every groove. This is the Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail, the Marcy Route, 1849.
The marker stands in Potter County, and those ruts are still clearly visible if you know where to look. That alone ought to tell you something about how many boots, hooves, and wagon wheels came through here. Now let me take you back to June of 1849.
Colonel R.B. Marcy, U.S. Army, is leading five hundred Arkansans — professional men, business men, whole families — westward along this very road on their way to California's gold fields.
Five hundred people, following a soldier through the Texas Panhandle, chasing rumors of gold. And those were just the ones Marcy was officially escortin'. Scores of goldseekers in smaller groups also used this route that same year, making their own way, taking their own chances.
The trail connected the river ports of Fort Smith and Van Buren, Arkansas all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and for one blazing season in 1849 it was one of the most traveled roads on the continent. Then came 1853, and the trail got a second look from a different kind of visionary. Lieutenant A.W.
Whipple surveyed this route as the proposed path for the first transcontinental railroad. A railroad. The whole country was dreaming big, and this old dirt road through the Panhandle was right at the center of that dream.
It even won Congressional support before the Civil War — that's how seriously people were taking it. But then the War came, and sentiment shifted the way sentiment does when the world turns upside down. The Union Pacific, running to the northward, was actually built first.
The Marcy Route's moment had passed. Still, this trail kept working for a living. During the Civil War, a mail line left the Old Butterfield Stage Route in Eastern Oklahoma and came through this very point, carrying letters on over to Las Vegas and Santa Fe.
Then in 1878, the trail found new purpose again as a mail-stage line running from the federal fort at Mobeetie, in the Texas Panhandle, all the way to Las Vegas, New Mexico. For ten more years it carried that load. The trail has not been used since 1888.
That's it. No formal retirement, no ceremony. Just... silence, and eventually grass, and those ruts that are still there today — still pointing northeast and southwest, like the road never quite forgot where it was going.
What the marker says
Clearly visible to the northeast and southwest are ruts of the Old Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail, the overland route connecting river ports of Fort Smith and Van Buren, Arkansas with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Route gained national fame when Col. R.B. Marcy, U.S. Army, escorted party of 500 Arkansans--professional and business men and families--over this road in June 1849, on the way to California's gold fields. Scores of goldseekers in smaller groups also used the route that year. Old trail became proposed route in 1853 for first transcontinental railroad as surveyed by Lt. A.W. Whipple. Prior to the Civil War, this route had won Congressional support, but the War shifted sentiment so that Union Pacific, to the northward, actually was built first. During the War, a mail line left the Old Butterfield Stage Route in Eastern Oklahoma and went by way of this point over to Las Vegas and Santa Fe. In 1878 began usage of this link of road for a mail-stage line from the federal fort at Mobeetie, in the Texas Panhandle, to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The trail has not been used since 1888. (1965)