The Box That Fed the Trail

In 1866 Charles Goodnight was preparing to move two thousand head of cattle out of Palo Pinto County toward Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Six hundred miles through country with no towns, no supply, and no way to feed the men doing the driving.

He bought a surplus Army wagon and rebuilt it. Iron axles, because wooden ones broke. Running gear cut from bois d’arc, the hardest wood in Texas.

Then he had a carpenter build a box for the back of it, with drawers, shelves, and a hinged lid that dropped down into a work table. That carpenter was from Parker County.

Every chuckwagon that ever rolled north out of Texas descends from that one box. The cook who ran it outranked every man on the drive except the trail boss. He set the schedule, he picked the camp, and if you crossed him you ate last.

The wagon on display here is one of that kind. The design left a Parker County shop and went everywhere.

Photograph: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, c. 1880