Finding the Great Western Trail

by Sylvia Mahoney, Ray Klinginsmith (Foreword by)

Overview

The Great Western Trail (GWT) is a nineteenth-century cattle trail that originated in northern Mexico, ran west parallel to the Chisholm Trail, traversed the United States for some two thousand miles, and terminated after crossing the Canadian border. Yet through time, misinformation, and the perpetuation of error, the historic path of this once-crucial cattle trail has been lost. Finding the Great Western Trail documents the first multi-community effort made to recover evidence and verify the route of the Great Western Trail.
            The GWT had long been celebrated in two neighboring communities: Vernon, Texas, and Altus, Oklahoma. Separated by the Red River, a natural border that cattle trail drovers forded with their herds, both Vernon and Altus maintained a living trail history with exhibits at local museums, annual trail-related events, ongoing narratives from local descendants of drovers, and historical monuments and structures. So when Western Trail Historical Society members in Altus challenged the Vernon Rotary Club to mark the trail across Texas every six miles, the effort soon spread along the trail in part through Rotary networks from Mexico, across nine US states, and into Saskatchewan, Canada.
            This book is the story of finding and marking the trail, and it stands as a record of each community’s efforts to uncover their own GWT history. What began as local bravado transformed into a grass-roots project that, one hopes, will bring the previously obscured history of the Great Western Trail to light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780896729438
Publisher:	Texas Tech University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2015
Series:	Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sylvia Gann Mahoney was an educator for thirty-three years at community colleges in Texas and New Mexico as an administrator, teacher, and rodeo team coach. She became involved with the Great Western Trail project through her involvement in the Rotary Club of Vernon. She now lives in Fort Worth.

Table of Contents

Illustrations xiii

Maps xvii

Foreword xix

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxvii

Chapter 1 Longhorns, Drovers, Legends, Confusion 3

Chapter 2 First Two GWT Markers in Texas 29

Chapter 3 Mexico and South Texas 47

Chapter 4 San Antonio to the Heart of Texas 67

Chapter 5 Coleman, Callahan, Shackelford, Taylor Counties 85

Chapter 6 North Texas Counties: Throckmorton, Baylor, Wilbarger 103

Chapter 7 Oklahoma and Kansas 123

Chapter 8 Nebraska, Colorado, the Dakotas 141

Chapter 9 Wyoming, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta 165

Chapter 10 The Trail Home: A Living Legend 189

Appendix: Trail-Team Volunteers 209

Sources and Further Readings 227

Note 241

Index 255

Editorial Reviews

Sylvia Mahoney brilliantly documents how hundreds of grassroots volunteers rescued the Great Western Trail from obscurity. Her notes and records about the project are second-to-none, and this book is destined to become the premier document for the preservation of this part of our country’s western expansion and development.
--James Aneff, past governor, Rotary International District 5790, Abilene, Texas

An entertaining blend of the old and the new, Finding the Great Western Trail is at once a story about the early cattle drives and a modern-day journey to mark the trail, and a “how-to” guide to completing a major service project.
--Jeff Bearden, historian and co-chair of Marking the Great Western Trail project, Vernon, Texas

Impressive and highly significant, Finding the Great Western Trail seamlessly brings together such topics as cattle and cowboys, drovers and cattle drives.  Broad in its coverage and engaging in its presentation, Mahoney recounts with passion and clarity the long-standing efforts of local Rotary International groups, with the help of public officials, to mark this famous cattle-moving route from Mexico northward into Canada.
—Paul H. Carlson, professor emeritus of history, Texas Tech University

Sylvia Mahoney's book, a true labor of love, is amazing and so well done. The story is an important one, of strong, brave, and innovative individuals who stuck to their guns in their beliefs and principles to build a better future.
--Ted Paup, Great Western Trail rancher, businessman, and Rotarian

From the Publisher