DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about The Old Buffalo Road, up in Wichita County. Now, some roads get their names from the men who built them, or the towns they connect. This one got its name from what traveled over it — and what was left behind.
The Old Buffalo Road. Named, the marker tells us, for its traffic in buffalo hides and bones. Let that settle in for a moment.
Hides first, then bones. That's the whole arc of a world, right there in two words. Here's the thing you have to understand about the buffalo and the plains.
As long as the buffalo survived — providing food, shelter, and clothing — the Indians were lords of the plains. That's not my editorializing, that's exactly what the marker says. And the authorities recognized it.
Recognized it, and encouraged the hunting. So the hunters came, and the hides came off the plains, and they moved to market over this road. Hundreds of wagons.
The marker says hundreds of wagons carrying buffalo hides rolled over this route before 1878. And then the buffalo were gone. And then the Indians were gone.
And permanent settlers arrived. But a road that carried that kind of weight doesn't just stop being useful. In the hard years — and there were plenty of hard years — while a man was trying to get a start at farming or ranching or storekeeping, he'd go out and salvage what remained.
Not hides this time. Bones. The bones of the great herds, bleaching out there on the Texas plains.
He'd load them up and sell them for grocery money, for seed money, just to hold on one more season. And hundreds of wagons made that same slow trip, carrying bones to Wichita Falls and Henrietta, right up until 1890. The road itself had a route worth knowin'.
It came east off the plains, running near the south line of Foard and Wilbarger counties, down to a place called Guide Mound. Then three miles east — right near where that marker stands — and south to the Wichita River bridge, then on to the county line three miles west of Holliday. It passed the north edge of Holliday, swung south of Lake Wichita, and crossed at the Old Van Dorn crossing, five miles south of Jolly.
Pioneers had more than one name for it, the way useful things tend to collect names. Some called it the Great North Road. Some called it the Good Creek Road.
But history mostly remembers it as the Old Buffalo Road — a name that carries the weight of everything that moved over it, and everything that was lost so it could move. The marker calls it invaluable to the economy and the mapping of the area. That's true as far as it goes.
But there's a heavier truth underneath. This road was the route of a harvest — the marker's own word, harvest, set in quotation marks like the writer knew it needed them — that ended one way of life on the plains so another could begin. The wagons rolled east with hides, then with bones, and when there was nothing left to carry, the settlers stayed.
That's the whole story of this road, and it's still out there under the Texas sky, if you know where to look.
What the marker says
Named for its traffic in buffalo hides and bones, this north Texas road gave subsistence to pioneers while aiding in mass "harvest" of the American bison. As long as buffalo survived (providing food, shelter and clothing) the Indians were lords of the plains. Recognizing this, the authorities encouraged hunting. Harvested hides were taken to market over this road. The buffalo and Indians gone, permanent settlers arrived. In adverse years (while a man tried to get a start at farming, ranching or storekeeping), bones were salvaged and sold for grocery or seed money. This old road was route of hundreds of wagons taking buffalo hides to market before 1878 and hundreds of wagons taking bones to Wichita Falls and Henrietta before 1890. The road came east from the plains, near south line of Foard and Wilbarger counties to Guide Mound; then three miles east (near this marker) and south to Wichita River bridge; then to the county line three miles west of Holliday. Next it passed the north edge of Holliday, and south of Lake Wichita, then crossed at the Old Van Dorn crossing five miles south of Jolly. Pioneers also called it "Great North" Road or "Good Creek" Road. It proved invaluable to economy and mapping of area.