Lost Wagon Trail

The gate with original post

Trail leading North of the gate

Road proceeding North of Gate

Off set gate

View from North end of Trail looking South

White is current road, Green is trail, Yellow is probable extension of trail, red is the steep edge of mountain, purple is new road up mountain

Trail goes through old gate

Current road up steep grade of mountain

Off set corner

Old road gradually climbs mountain up a draw to gate

Road North of gate

Comparison of two routes up mountain

This blog is to describe an old wagon road my father and my neighbor’s father almost didn’t see the need to mention to us.    I was amazed when my father told me about it as we scurried across the pasture busily racing to the next task.  I was raised on the place and at the age of 40, I am now 69, he dropped this surprise on me. That is probably the moment  I began to have an interest in finding what happened here, 25 miles from any town of any size, in the southwest corner of San Saba County near the center of Texas.  I had read about Texas history but knew very little of what happened here.  I had read in the book “1491” that there were actually a lot of people that lived in the America’s before European settlers came here.  My quest is to work with others to find those forgotten sites where ancient people and more recent settlers have been.  I know that any mark they left just shows the blood, sweat, and tears they put into settling this country. 

When I was a teenager of saw my father lead a bulldozer as he rode on horseback down cow trails in the rocky country north of this road to make pasture roads for modern vehicles to travel. So I learned that the cows had already figured out the smoothest trails.   I suspect this route I am writing about was beat out by buffalo hundreds of years before nomads, Indians, cowboys, or settlers came into the area.  Although with modern equipment a road can be built anywhere, in those days the terrain was everything.   I have the remains of the old road marked in green on the map.   Only about two miles of the old road are discernible.    It starts on the South West end just before the terrain drops off into the lower country of the Llano Uplift.  It winds its way up a draw which gradually rises to the higher country surrounding the uplift.  I have walked it and there is not a single ridge to traverse walking up the draw.   It is the last opportunity to gradually climb the mountain created by the uplift rather than trying to climb a steep grade.  As it reaches a fence we find a gate.  It is a very old fence and I suspect may very well be the first significant fence ever built.  There is no other reason for a gate to be there.  In modern times there certainly wouldn’t be a gate across a road but it was probably the only option.  Talk about slow down the traffic and make for a long trip.  It shows how good we got it and how tough they had it.   The land to the south of the fence was first purchased in 1895 by the Birk family and they still own it.  The owner to the North was originally Kuykendahl land, then sold to Opp then sold to my family in 1937.  I have replaced the horse gap (a fence like gate strung between the two gate posts, see map and picture) with a wire gate.  My Uncle Fay had told me that when he was a teenager he had gone through that gap.  He had traveled up the old road from Fredonia to his brother’s house (my father) which was further up the trail near the offset corner gate ( I will explain later). 

After topping out of the draw the trail is pretty flat. This where I found one of the clues that convinced me this was an old road.  I had never noticed this part of the road whereas I remember other parts being used to traverse the pasture from time to time.  I know this part had not been used in my life time.  The first time I turned down it the indentation of the two wagon tracts was obvious.  Also, this area was almost solid prickly pear but there was no pear between the tracts.  After traversing the pear patch the road passes along the side of a  ridge passing 3 buffalo wallers on the west and lower boggy country on the East.  The sunken road is pretty obvious through most of this area.  After about a mile it turns steeply to the right(east),  goes up a caliche ridge and through a offset gate. By offset I mean that there are four corners but only two meet leaving a gap, see photo.   I believe that when the Fisher Miller Land Grant was surveyed prior to 1850 the corner happened to be at the road or the road was moved to the corner.    I don’t know whether the original survey ignored the road or not, but I feel sure a fence was never built across the road.  I believe the corner was offset to leave the road open.  The previous owner actually owned the land to the northeast of the corner and the land southwest of the corner.  This indicates to me that the opening was always there.  When my Grandfather purchased the 3000+ acres on the North east of the corner, my father purchased the 640 acres southwest of the corner.  My father inherited both parts.  The other offset corners have been owned by other people and are still or owned by the original families. One family, the Willis’s is the founder of the nearest town, Pontotoc.  

As the road proceeds east north east it passes down another smooth elevated but flat area alongside a small creek for half a mile until the creek turns across it.  If the road had crossed the creek any sooner it would have been on rocky terrain.    At the point the road crosses the creek the road heads up a small draw to the current county road.  The parts of road along the creek shows very deep tracts  from years of traffic.  It is now a pasture road but is much more indented than the other road that branches off of it showing me that it has been traveled much longer.   The road bed is less distinctive after it crosses the creek and goes up the draw.  I remember it once being the road to our house near the offset corner.  Going up the draw when it was wet we would take several different routes, whichever seemed dryer at the time, to pass through the seepy draw to dryer ground.  Hence there were several routes used through that area and no distinctive set of ruts. 

The yellow line on the map denotes the probable routes on each side of the distinguishable old road.  On each side the old road has been replaced by county roads and highways. If you follow Highway 71 to Brady and Ranch Road 386 to Mason you would find they go through the smoothest country.  These were the same roads when they  were dirt road except the corners have been cut across.   As the road proceeds east shown by the yellow line east of the green road, it proceeds through an area between the edge of the Llano uplift to the South and some rocky limestone country to the North.  Although the road eventually gets in to rocks it avoids them as long as it can.  The white line shows the present county roads.  

The terrain dictated where the road had to be.  A half mile north and sometimes less the road would have been through rocky terrain which extended at least 10 miles to the north and 30 to 50 miles wide.   The Chisholm Trail which ran close to I 35 and headed North from San Antonio was the first major cattle trail.  Due to fencing and settlements the trail had to be moved west.  Even though both trails started at San Antonio, the first easy trail north from San Antonio was 150 miles west of Austin near Brady Texas.  It was called the Great Western Trail.  It is just west of this old road.   It is another indication that the area north of here was considered nearly impassable. I have personally seen a lot of this area and it is still owned by very large ranchers and is very rough country.

As time passed and motor vehicles negated the need to go by the shortest route, the old road was abandoned, and other roads were built.  It might be noted.  The old road route was surveyed for a highway 50 years ago and then the idea was abandoned.  I remember the survey flags.  I had no idea at the time the flags followed the old road.  I believe they decided to improve the road North of Pontotoc instead which is still one of the steepest roads in Texas where it climbs the North face of the Llano Uplift just east of this old road.   Occasionally I have seen extremely heavy loads try to climb the hill.   In the heat of the summer with the sun hitting that south facing black top they found that the black top would not support the weight of overweight rigs. The tar would simply start sliding down the mountain as the truck tried to go up it.    After several rigs had to be pulled up the hill with very large wreckers, which had to be brought in from Houston, that route seems to have been abandoned by large loads.  Maybe the old buffalo were smarter than we thought.  They figured out the best route a long time ago.