2012-07-27, Exploration of the Texas Panhandle, 1850s, Capt. R.B. Marcy

Chuck Oates shared Traces of Texas's status.

2012-07-27

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Umm, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you're a newcomer to the Texas Panhandle look at the sky, not at the ground. The grandeur of the magnificent thunderstorms and the beauty of the sky's-on-fire sunrises and sunsets can be grasped immediately. The beauty of the vast, trackless ocean of short grass takes longer to appreciate, but is equally gorgeous.

(You can take the boy out of the Panhandle, but you can't take the Panhandle out of the boy. Sign me "Alive and Well in Oklahoma, Captured by Chickasaws")

The Texas quote of the day, July 26th: "When we were upon the high table-land, a view presented itself as boundless as the ocean. Not a tree, shrub, or any other object, either animate or inanimate, relieved the dreary monotony of the prospect .... it is a region almost as vast and trackless as the sea ---- 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." ------ Captain Randolph Marcy, recording his first impressions of the Texas Panhandle in his diary, 1847

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  Dottie Leathers Newkirk, Patsy Duncan and 3 others like this.
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    Chuck Oates A comment writer on the Traces of Texas fb page offered this link to a much more extensive 1850s description of the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, written by an Army captain who wields a very descriptive pen. http://bit.ly/LTB57N
    

    

    
    

    
    

    Notes taken during the expedition commanded by Capt. R. B. Marcy, U. S. A., through unexplored Texas
    

    

    books.google.com

    7 hours ago · Edited ·  · 1 · 
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    Patsy Duncan I have the map of the route he took
    

    2 hours ago ·  · 1
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    Chuck Oates Wow, Capt. Marcy was all over the place in the European-American exploration of western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, wasn't he? Finding the headwaters of the Red River in the Palo Duro Canyon in the 1850s was no mean feat for a gringo (or whatever the Comanche word for "gringo" is). Here are a couple of links:
    
    Red River Exploration
    http://www.redriverhistorian.com/huntforredriver.html
    

    

    [corrected link]
    
    Petrified Wood Structures along the Red River in North Texas
    http://www.redriverhistorian.com/onmarcystrail.html

    

    
    

    
    

    Hunt for the Red River
    

    

    www.redriverhistorian.com