Josiah Gregg

Yesterday, while heading back to Amarillo from Garden City, Kansas, I decided to take a route that I normally avoid for various reasons.  It was partly because I was a little off the beaten path after making a few sales calls on prospective customers and partly because I hadn't been that way in many years.

I came across a historical marker that I had never stopped to read (on Texas 136 northwest of Amarillo).  It was about Josiah Gregg and the Fort Smith to Santa Fe Trail.  It seems that in 1840, Josiah Gregg, one of the most famous Santa Fe Traders, explored a new route from Santa Fe to Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Instead of the well-traveled trail which followed the Arkansas River, he set off across the plains following the south bank of the Canadian River across the Texas Panhandle.

Gregg wrote a detailed account of the terrain and water sources which became invaluable to the U.S. Cavalry in the later wars against the Indians of the Southern Plains.

A brief history of Gregg can be found at the following link:

Josiah Gregg

A great resource for those interested, is the Atlas of Texas Historical Markers.  Whenever I have the time I enjoy stopping to read the markers.  There is a lot of interesting history scattered along the wayside of the roads and highways of the Great Lone Star State.