The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 31, July 1927 - April, 1928 Page: 232

                                
Southwestern Historical Quarterly

sands, of years. The main tributaries of the Palo Duro are Terra
Blanco, which heads above the present city of Rhea, Caion Cito
Blanco, which heads between Happy and Canyon, and Tule Can-
yon, which heads above where Tulia is today. Besides these there
are many other smaller streams; some of them shown on the map
facing this page. The Palo Duro proper begins at Devil's Kitchen,
on Harding's Ranch in Randall County, a short distance farther
west than is shown on the map, and extends to below where Hack-
berry Creek empties into the Palo Duro. The entire distance is
about seventy-five miles, sixty miles of which was, and still is, in
the holdings of the J A Ranch. The Cap Rock makes the bank
of the canyon on the west and north. The canyon varies in width
from a half mile to over fifteen miles, and in depth, from a few
hundred feet up to thirteen hundred feet. On either side, every
few hundred yards a gully, ravine, or large creek, empties into
the canyon, and each one of these gullies, ravines, or creeks, is a
miniature canyon in itself several hundred feet deep. The main
canyon and its tributaries have all the wonderful effects produced
by erosion-projecting rocks, deep gorges, caves, gushing springs,
which furnished watering places for the Indians and for buffaloes
and other wild game that roamed over the prairies before the
advent of the white man, and today, furnish water for the white
man's herds. The banks are covered from top to bottom with a
growth of cedar, hackberry, catclaw, cactus, shinnery, bois d'arc
and a number of other kinds of trees and shrubbery. The main
stream in the bottom of the canyon is not very wide and does not
have water in it through its entire length, except during the rainy
season in the spring of the year, or, after a large rain. However,
as has been stated above, there are many springs along its course
which furnish water the year around, but these merely fill the
holes near their source and what runs over after these holes are
filled, is lost in the sand and gravel in the bottom of the main
stream course. There is to be found in the canyon, thousands of
acres of the best grazing land in this section of the country. It
will be remembered, as stated above, that the canyon varies in
width from a half a mile to over fifteen miles, and that it is over
seventy-five miles in length. There is no place, perhaps, in the
United States where nature has provided a more ideal range than
this one. It furnishes the maximum       of protection during the

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