To Everything A Season

Shawnee Trail Ride 

A friend recently posted this picture on Facebook. I had never seen it before. I was thirteen years old. It was an annual thing back in Gunter for the Shawnee Trail Ride to come through town. For several years in a row, Daddy would let Marilyn and me get out of school on that day and take us to the starting point so we could ride that leg of the trip! That was the one and only time we would ever ride a horse; occasionally we might ride in a wagon. 

A little documented history:  Grayson County here in north Texas is home to the famed Preston Road. This road was a major pioneer road, crossing the Red River into Texas. Just to the east of the Preston Road was the Shawnee Trail, the first cattle drive road in Texas. This cattle trail crossed the Red River and the herds would pass through the Indian Nations in Oklahoma to reach the railheads in Kansas.

One of those things of the past that some re-enacted for fun! I wish I knew the last year it was done here before the annual tradition went by the wayside.