Local History
Texas Goodnight-Loving Trail Historical Markers: The Route That Supplied a Territory
Four real Texas historical markers trace the Goodnight-Loving Trail, from Loving County to Oliver Loving’s grave in Weatherford. Find them with RoadHistorical, free on iPhone and Android.
Photo: Bailey Alexander / Unsplash. A cattle drive on the open range.
Texas has more than 16,000 official historical markers. Most drivers blow right past them at 70 miles per hour. The Goodnight-Loving Trail cut across the western half of the state, and you can still find the spots where the cattle crossed. RoadHistorical is a Texas historical preservation platform that helps you stop and read the markers that matter. This guide covers four real markers that trace the route Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed in 1866.
The County Named for a Cattleman
Goodnight-Loving Trail marker sits out near Mentone in Loving County. You’ll find it on State Highway 302, west of town, in some of the emptiest country Texas has.
Oliver Loving drove the first Texas herds north around 1860. He knew this land before the trail had a name. When the county was organized, they named it after him. Loving County is the least populated county in the lower 48 states today. Fewer than 100 people live here.
Stand at this marker and you’re looking at the same horizon those cowboys watched. The trail ran southwest from here toward the Pecos River and Horsehead Crossing.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Address: State Highway 302, Mentone, TX 79754
The Watering Hole That Became a Town
Goodnight Trail marker stands in Fair Park in Childress. The state placed it in 1964, and the inscription tells a tight story.
Between 1866 and 1871, this was a route for great cattle drives from Texas to U.S. forts in Colorado and New Mexico. Charles Goodnight drove thousands of cattle to water at this exact spot. The site became the town of Childress in 1886. That old cattle watering hole is now a lake in Fair Park.
You can walk right up to the water the herds drank from. It’s a rare thing, standing where the trail actually touched the ground.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Address: Fair Park, Childress, TX 79201
The Rancher Who Invented the Chuckwagon
Charles Goodnight marker sits in the tiny town of Goodnight, in Armstrong County. Look for it where U.S. 287 meets County Road 25, about 42 miles east of Amarillo.
Goodnight settled here after selling his share of the JA Ranch. He and John Adair started the JA in 1877, the first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle. But his best-known invention came earlier. On that 1866 drive, he rebuilt a surplus Studebaker army wagon into the first chuckwagon. Cowboys ate from his design for the next century.
The Goodnight Historical Center sits nearby at his old ranch house.
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Address: 4989 County Road 25, Goodnight, TX 79226
Oliver Loving’s Last Ride
Greenwood Cemetery in Weatherford holds Oliver Loving’s grave. His story is the reason this trail carries two names.
In the summer of 1867, Loving rode ahead of the herd to line up contracts. Comanche raiders attacked him near the Pecos. He was badly wounded but reached Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Gangrene set into his arm, and doctors amputated it. He died on September 25, 1867. Goodnight kept his promise and hauled his partner’s body all the way back to Texas for burial here.
If the tale sounds familiar, it should. It inspired the Gus McCrae storyline in Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove.”
Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Address: Greenwood Cemetery, Weatherford, TX 76086
How RoadHistorical Finds These Markers
Discovery Mode does the hard part for you. It runs while you drive and notifies you when a historical marker is coming up on your route. You don’t have to hunt for these places. The app taps you on the shoulder as you get close.
The AI Tour Guide answers the questions a bronze plaque can’t. Ask it why Loving rode ahead alone, or what a chuckwagon carried, and it fills in the story. Offline mode keeps everything working out in Loving County, where cell coverage runs thin and the markers sit far apart.
Start Discovering Texas History Today
RoadHistorical is free to download on iPhone and Android. Download it here and turn on Discovery Mode before your next drive. Android users can download RoadHistorical from Google Play.
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