The Texas Road

Also called the Shawnee Trail, Sedalia Trail or the Kansas Trail, the Texas Road was a major trade and emigrant route to Texas across Indian Territory (Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri).

In the late 1700s and early 1800s the route was known as the Osage Trace.  It followed the Grand Neosho) River from Kansas to the vicinity of present Fort Gibson (KS) and then turned east toward Fort Smith in Arkansas. The Osage used the route to and from the plains on hunting trips.  They would also acquire salt from the salt springs in the Grand River valley. 

In 1821 in present Mayes County (NE OK) the United Foreign Mission Society established Union Mission for the Osage, near a salt spring along the trace that would become the Texas Road.

During the 19th century it was the primary north-south route through the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw nations. The route entered Oklahoma near Baxter Springs, Kansas, and passed near the present-day towns of Vinita, Pryor, Wagoner, Fort Gibson, Checotah, Eufaula, McAlester, and Durant, crossing the Red River near Colbert, and entering Texas north of present-day Denison.

Travel to Texas through the eastern side of the Indian Territory may have taken place as early as the 1820s when Mexican land grants began attracting large numbers of settlers from Missouri and Arkansas.  Early travelers bound for Texas followed the Osage Trace to Fort Gibson and then turned southwest to TX.  

Later, North Fork Town, Perryville, Boggy Depot, and Colbert's Ferry were places along the road for supplies and for traders. By 1842 Choctaws wee operating ferries across the Red River near Colbert, south of the confluence of the Washita River with the Red.

Traffic along the road increased in 1849 and 1850 when it became part of the southern route to the California gold fields. In 1858 the Butterfield Overland Express Company began using part of it as their stagecoach route. By the late 1850s more than 100,000 wagons per year were documented on the road crossing the Indian Territory.

During the Civil War it was seldom used for cattle drives following some incidents regarding Texas cattle bearing the tick that produced Texas Fever into the northern herds.  However, both Union and Confederate forces used the road to move supplies and troops and they fought over control of the road.  It was the Federal supply route out of Kansas to Fort Gibson.  It was significant to both the Confederate and Union Armies as they tried to maintain control of the Indian Territory. 
 
On July 17, 1863, the battle of Honey Springs (NE of Checotah , OK) took place directly on and alongside the road. The first and second battles of Cabin Creek, July 1-2, 1863 and Sept 18-19m 1864 (near present-day Vinita OK) occurred when Confederate troops attacked Federal wagon trains carrying supplies bound for Fort Gibson.  On Oct 6, 1863, the Battle of Baxter Springs (Baxter Springs Massacre) took place along the road.

Perryville sat right at the intersection of the Texas Road from Fort Gibson to Boggy Depot and the east-west road from Fort Smith Arkansas to Fort Arbuckle, OK.  It was burned during an engagement in August 1863. Boggy Depot, by that time the capital of the Choctaw Nation, served as an important supply depot for Confederate operations in the Indian Territory. The February 13, 1864, battle of Middle Boggy occurred within several miles of the road in present near Atoka, OK.

With the cessation of hostilities, travel on the road resumed at its pre-war level. It continued until 1872 when the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (KATY) Railway laid tracks parallel to the road.  Traffic on the Texas Road diminished and it became a local traffic route.  In 1919 the Jefferson Highway, from Canada to New Orleans closely followed the route through Texas and Oklahoma. Now US Hwy 69, it generally follows the original route of the Texas Road from Kansas across Oklahoma to Texas.