The Texas Road, also known as the Shawnee Trail, Sedalia Trail, or Kansas Trail, was a major trade and emigrant route to

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

across

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

(later

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

, and

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

). Established during the Mexican War by

emigrants Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

rushing to Texas, it remained an important route across Indian Territory until Oklahoma statehood. The Shawnee Trail was the earliest and easternmost route by which

Texas Longhorn The Texas Longhorn is an American breed of beef cattle, characterized by its long horns, which can span more than from tip to tip. It derives from cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas by Spanish conquistadores from the t ...

cattle were taken to the north. It played a significant role in the history of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas in the early and mid-1800s.

The Shawnee Trail route

"Of the principal routes by which Texas Longhorn cattle were taken afoot to

railheads In the UK, railheading refers to the practice of travelling further than necessary to reach a rail service, typically by car. The phenomenon is common among commuters seeking a more convenient journey. Reasons for railheading include, but are ...

to the north, the earliest and easternmost was the Shawnee Trail. Used before and just after the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail gathered cattle from east and west of its main stem, which passed through

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

Waco Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the s ...

, and

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

. It crossed the Red River at Rock Bluff, near

Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

, and led north along the eastern edge of what became Oklahoma, a route later followed closely by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The drovers took over a trail long used by Indians in hunting and raiding and by southbound settlers from the Midwest; the latter called it the Texas Road. North of Fort Gibson, the cattle route split into terminal branches that ended in such Missouri points as St. Louis, Sedalia,

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the stat ...

, Westport, and

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...

, and in

Baxter Springs Baxter Springs is a city in Cherokee County, Kansas, United States, and located along Spring River. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,888. History For thousands of years, indigenous peoples had lived along the waterw ...

and other towns in eastern Kansas. Early drovers referred to their route as the cattle trail, the Sedalia Trail, the Kansas Trail, or simply the trail. Why some began calling it the Shawnee Trail is uncertain, but the name may have been suggested by a

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

village on the Texas side of the Red River just below the trail crossing or by the Shawnee Hills, which the route skirted on the eastern side before crossing the

Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .Gard, Wayne, "Shawnee Trail", ''Handbook of Texas Online'', s.v. (accessed August 19, 2006)
/ref> The Shawnee Trail, followed the route from Colbert's Ferry, Indian Territory, in the south, across the

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

, and

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...

Nations, to Baxter Springs, Kansas, in the north. Later, the Shawnee Trail branched further west. The first route was then called the East Shawnee Trail and the branch called the West Shawnee Trail. The East Shawnee Trail followed the Grand River to Fort Gibson. The West Shawnee Trail which started in Missouri and passed through

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Cens ...

before joining the other trail continuing to the Red River on the Texas border. Several stations were set up along the road where travelers could rest and refresh their horses. The western branch particularly remained the main cattle trail from Texas until the opening of the

Chisholm Trail The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the post-Civil War era to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The trail was established by Black Beaver, a Lenape guide and rancher, and his friend Jesse Chisholm, a Cher ...

(or Abilene Trail) following the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

History of the Trail

Texas herds were taken up the Shawnee Trail as early as the 1840s, and use of the route gradually increased, but by 1853, trouble had begun to plague some of the drovers. In June of that year, as 3,000 cattle were trailed through western Missouri, local farmers blocked their passage and forced the drovers to turn back. This opposition arose from the fact that the Longhorns carried

ticks Ticks (order Ixodida) are parasitic arachnids that are part of the mite superorder Parasitiformes. Adult ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length depending on age, sex, species, and "fullness". Ticks are external parasites, living by ...

that bore a serious disease that the farmers called

Texas fever Babesiosis or piroplasmosis is a malaria-like parasitic disease caused by infection with a eukaryotic parasite in the order Piroplasmida, typically a ''Babesia'' or ''Theileria'', in the phylum Apicomplexa. Human babesiosis transmission via tic ...

. The Texas cattle were immune to this disease, but the ticks that they left on their bedding areas infected the local cattle, causing many to die and making others unfit to sell. Some herds avoided the blockades, and the antagonism became stronger and more effective. In 1855, angry farmers in western and central Missouri formed vigilance committees, stopped some of the herds, and killed any Texas cattle that entered their counties. Missouri stockmen in several county seats called on their legislature for action. The outcome was a law, effective in December of that year, which banned diseased cattle from being brought into or through the state. This law failed, though, since the Longhorns were not themselves diseased. Farmers formed armed bands that turned back some herds, though others managed to get through. Several drovers took their herds north through the eastern edge of Kansas, but there, too, they met opposition from farmers, who induced their territorial legislature to pass a protective law in 1859. During the Civil War the Shawnee Trail was virtually unused for cattle drives. However both sides of the Civil War used the road heavily to move supplies and troops. Union and Confederate forces fought over control of the route, clashing at the

Battle of Honey Springs The Battle of Honey Springs, also known as the Affair at Elk Creek, on July 17, 1863, was an American Civil War engagement and an important victory for Union forces in their efforts to gain control of the Indian Territory. It was the largest ...

and

Battle of Baxter Springs The Battle of Baxter Springs, more commonly known as the Baxter Springs Massacre, was a minor battle of the American Civil War fought on 6 October 1863, near the present-day town of Baxter Springs, Kansas. In late 1863, Quantrill's Raiders, a ...

on the road. After the war, with Texas overflowing with surplus cattle with almost no local markets, pressure for trailing became stronger than ever. In the spring of 1866, an estimated 200,000 to 260,000 cattle were pointed north. Although some herds were forced to turn back, others managed to get through, while still others were delayed or diverted around the hostile farm settlements. James M. Daugherty, a Texas youth of 16, was one who felt the sting of the

vigilantes Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...

. Trailing his herd of 500 steers north, he was attacked in southeastern Kansas by a band of

Jayhawkers Jayhawkers and red legs are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs ...

dressed as hunters. The mobsters stampeded the herd and killed one of the trail hands (some sources say they tied Daugherty to a tree with his own picket rope, then whipped him with

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mex ...

switches.). After being freed and burying the dead cowboy, Daugherty recovered about 350 of the cattle. He continued at night in a roundabout way and sold his steers in Fort Scott at a profit. With six states enacting laws in the first half of 1867 against trailing, Texas cattlemen realized the need for a new trail that would skirt the farm settlements and thus avoid the trouble over tick fever. In 1867, a young Illinois livestock dealer, Joseph G. McCoy, built market facilities at

Abilene, Kansas Abilene (pronounced ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Dickinson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 6,460. It is home of The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum and the ...

, at the terminus of the Chisholm Trail. The new route to the west of the Shawnee Trail soon began carrying the bulk of the Texas herds, leaving the earlier trail to dwindle for a few years and expire. The Texas Road eventually became part of U.S. Route 69.

References

* Foreman, Grant
"Early Trails Through Oklahoma"
''Chronicles of Oklahoma'' 3:2 (June 1925) 99-119 (accessed August 16, 2006). * BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wayne Gard, "The Shawnee Trail," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 56 (January 1953). Joseph G. McCoy, Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest (Kansas City, Missouri: Ramsey, Millett, and Hudson, 1874; rpt., Philadelphia: Porcupine, 1974). From the Shawnee Trail website with permission from the Shawnee Trail Partnership. {{Texas History Navbox Historic trails and roads in Texas Historic trails and roads in Kansas Historic trails and roads in Missouri Historic trails and roads in Oklahoma Indian Territory in the American Civil War Texas in the American Civil War Kansas in the American Civil War Trails and roads in the American Old West U.S. Route 69

The Shawnee Trail route

History of the Trail

See also

References