In 1866, a young cattleman named Charles Goodnight forged a partnership with Oliver Loving, an established rancher 25 years his senior, and they blazed a new cattle trail across Texas to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. By 1868, the trail spanned some 2,000 miles, extending into Colorado and Wyoming. And the partnership that started with a handshake in an unassuming hamlet in North Texas became one of the most celebrated legends of the West.
In 1866, a young cattleman named Charles Goodnight forged a partnership with Oliver Loving, an established rancher 25 years his senior, and they blazed a new cattle trail across Texas to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. By 1868, the trail spanned some 2,000 miles, extending into Colorado and Wyoming. And the partnership that started with a handshake in an unassuming hamlet in North Texas became one of the most celebrated legends of the West.
The story of the Goodnight-Loving Trail represents the defining story of the last frontier, before fences and railroads changed the West forever. As a Texan born 100 years after the close of the frontier, I've always wanted to see the state as it was then--wide open to anyone courageous enough to take it on. Believing in the power of place to connect us to history, I decided to retrace the steps of Goodnight and Loving to call forth that sense of possibility and purpose. « less
