The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923 Page: 35
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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History of West and Northwest Texas Since 1845
or any other object, either animate or inanimate, relieved the
dreary monotony of the prospect-it was vast, illimitable expanse
of desert prairie-the dreaded Llano Estacado, or, in other words,
the great Sahara of North America. It is a region almost as
vast and trackless as the ocean-a land where no man, either
savage or civilized, permanently abides; it spreads forth into a
treeless, desolate waste of uninhabited solitude, which always has
been and must continue uninhabited forever; even the savages
dare not venture to cross it except at two or three places where
they know water can be found."
Captain Marcy could not then foresee that in 1919 the coun-
ties which he was traversing would produce nearly 2,500,000
bushels of wheat, and in 1920 would contain nearly 30,000 people.
On this first day on the plains, he "made a long drive of twenty-
eight miles on a perfectly hard and smooth road, with no ill effects"
to his animals.
When Captain Marcy had finished logging his trail from El
Paso to Preston, on Red River, he gave unqualified endorsement
to its practical utility, and expressed his belief that a large part
of the country was capable of great agricultural development.
He professed familiarity with the mountain routes to California,
and claimed that his route was better in every respect than the
mountain trails across the continent.
Straightway after the logging of this new trail emigrant travel
to the Pacific coast set in over it, and Forts Belknap, Cooper,
Phantom Hill, and Chadbourne were established on or near it
for the protection from Indians of this travel and of the expand-
ing waves of settlers from other portions of the state, in search
of new homes.
In January and in September, 1850, the Legislature of Texas
passed strong resolutions calling on the United States govern-
ment to place adequate armed forces on the borders of Texas to
protect the lives and property of its citizens from marauding In-
dians, asserting that the state had a right to expect this under
the terms of annexation.
In 1851 several tribes of Indians, numbering in all something
like 1,200, were settled in peaceful agricultural pursuits on the
Brazos, in Young County. These included the Caddos, Keechies,
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923, periodical, 1923; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101084/m1/41/?rotate=270: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.