Goodnight-Loving Trail, sometimes called Goodnight Trail, historic cattle trail that originated in Young county, western Texas, U.S. The trail ran southwest to connect with the Pecos River and thence up the river valley to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and north to the railhead at Denver, Colorado. The trail was established in 1866 by cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, who followed a route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, joining their herds to that of John S. Chisum in New Mexico. The route was later extended to Cheyenne, Wyoming. The arrival of the railroads to western Texas in the early 1880s made the long cattle drives unnecessary, and the trail was to all purposes abandoned. Its role in Texas history and legend is celebrated in Larry McMurtry’s 1985 novel Lonesome Dove.
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Texas, constituent state of the United States of America. It became the 28th state of the union in 1845. Texas occupies the south-central segment of the country and is the largest state in area except for Alaska. The state extends nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from north to south and…
Pecos River, river in the southwestern United States, rising in Mora County, north-central New Mexico, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and flowing about 926 miles (1,490 km) through eastern New Mexico and western Texas. It drains about 38,300 square miles (99,200 square km) before emptying into the Rio Grande…
Denver, city and county, capital of Colorado, U.S., at the western edge of the Great Plains, just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The city and county were consolidated as a single administrative unit in 1902. Denver lies at the junction of Cherry Creek and the South…
Cheyenne, capital (since 1869) and largest city of Wyoming, U.S., and seat of Laramie county, in the southeastern corner of the state, on Crow Creek, 49 miles (79 km) east of Laramie city; it sprawls over high prairie that slopes westward to the Laramie Mountains. Squatters arriving in 1867 just…
Larry McMurtry, prolific American writer noted for his novels set on the frontier, in contemporary small towns, and in increasingly urbanized and industrial areas of Texas. McMurtry was educated at North Texas State College (now University; B.A., 1958)…