Established by the United States Army, October 28, 1852, as a protection to frontier settlers against Indians named in honor of Lieutenant T.L. Chadbourne, killed at Resaca de la Palma, May 9, 1846, occupied by Federal troops, 1852-1867. An important station on the Butterfield Overland Stage route, 1858 - 1861.

Located 8 miles north on old Butterfield Stage Line. Upon secession, company of First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles occupied this post to give protection against Indians. Stopover on way west for many Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid conflict of war. Permanent personnel left the fort in 1862 when the frontier defense line was pulled back more than 50 miles east. However scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and State Troops used the fort intermittently in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near their camps and away from settlements and to check on the invasion by Union forces. Usually supplying their own mounts, guns and sustenance, these men guarded the frontier until war's end.

The center of a line of forts extending from the northeastern border of Texas to El Paso. Was also northern point of southern chain of forts extending to Rio Grande, thence along that river to its mouth. Established 1867 (at then junction of Butterfield Trail, Goodnight Trail and road to San Antonio) by 4th Cavalry under Capt. George G. Huntt to protect frontier. By March 1, 1870, fort buildings were (in order of their construction) a commissary and quartermaster storehouse, hospital, five officers quarters, a magazine and two barracks -- all built of sandstone. Among those who commanded post were: Gen. Wm. R. Shafter (later major general of volunteers, Spanish-American War; commanded troops at capture of Santiago de Cuba, July 1898); Maj. John P. Hatch (at one time fort was named in his honor); Gen. Wesley Merritt (first commander of Fort Davis after Civil War; was later superintendent of U.S. Military Academy at West Point); Gen. Ranald Slidell Mackenzie (who led attacks, from this and other forts, credited with defeat of Indian resistance in southwest); and Gen. Benjamin H. Grierson, commander of Negro troops of 10th Cavalry. On June 20, 1889, fort was abandoned as a military post and property passed into private ownership.

Located 10 miles east, 9 miles south on Old Butterfield Stageline. Upon secession, company of First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles used it as an outpost to give protection against Indians. Stopover on way west for some Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid conflict of war. In 1862 the frontier defense line was pulled back more than 30 miles east. However, scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and state troops intermittently visited the post in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near their camps and away from settlements and to check on invasion by Union forces. Usually supplying their own mounts, guns and sustenance, these men guarded the frontier until war's end.

Texas had 2000 miles of coastline and frontier to defend from Union attack, Indian raids, marauders. Defense lines were set to give maximum protection with the few men left in the state. One line stretched from El Paso to Brownsville. Another had posts set a day's horseback ride apart from Red River to the Rio Grande. Phantom Hill and other U.S. forts used by scouting parties lay in a line between. Behind these lines and to the east organized militia, citizens' posses from nearby settlements backed the Confederate and state troops to curb Indian raids.

Established November 26, 1867 by the United States Army to defend the frontier against the Indians. A mail station on the Butterfield Overland Stage Line, 1858-1861. Abandoned as a military post May 23, 1879.

Clearly visible to the northeast and southwest are ruts of the Old Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail, the overland route connecting river ports of Fort Smith and Van Buren, Arkansas with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Route gained national fame when Col. R.B. Marcy, U.S. Army, escorted party of 500 Arkansans--professional and business men and families--over this road in June 1849, on the way to California's gold fields. Scores of goldseekers in smaller groups also used the route that year.

Old trail became proposed route in 1853 for first transcontinental railroad as surveyed by Lt. A.W. Whipple. Prior to the Civil War, this route had won Congressional support, but the War shifted sentiment so that Union Pacific, to the northward, actually was built first. During the War, a mail line left the Old Butterfield Stage Route in Eastern Oklahoma and went by way of this point over to Las Vegas and Santa Fe. In 1878 began usage of this link of road for a mail-stage line from the federal fort at Mobeetie, in the Texas Panhandle, to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The trail has not been used since 1888.

By the 1870s remote areas of the frontier not served by the railroads needed mail delivery routes. In response the U.S. Post Office Department, in 1873, began establishing Star Post Routes.

On Aug. 15, 1878, Star Route No. 31454 was opened between Fort Worth and Yuma, Arizona Terr., under contract to J.T. Chidester. Stagecoaches carried the mail along much the same route used by the Butterfield Overland Mail in the late 1850s.

Fort Worth to Yuma mail was discontinued after completion of the southern transcontinental railroad in 1881.

In the mainstream of Texas history for more than a century, this area was, in 1837, the site of Colonel Holland Coffee's Trading Post, a landmark structure at the Preston Bend crossing of the Red River.

It was a focal point, beginning in 1842, for settlers of the important Peters' Colony. In 1846 the county was created from part of Fannin County by the 1st State Legislature. It was named for Peter W. Grayson, who immigrated to Texas in 1830, served in the Texas revolution, and was Attorney General in the Republic.

Also in 1846 the county was organized and Sherman was made county seat. The original townsite was 5-1/4 mi. W of here. It was moved to its present location, 1848. Honoree of the town name was Colonel Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Battle of San Jacinto. The place is distinguished for having had at least five courthouses and for its superior schools of the 19th century. It was once known as the "Athens of Texas." In 1858 the famous Butterfield Trail crossed the county and in the same period and later, a number of cattle trails and early railroads traversed the area.

Today Lake Texoma, created 1939-1944, is a county approved tourist attraction. The Sherman-Denison region was named a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1967.

Here crossed the undated Comanche Trail from Llano Estacado to Mexico in 1850 John R. Bartlett while surveying the Mexican boundary found the crossing marked by skulls of horses; hence the name "Horse Head", the Southern Overland Mail (Butterfield), route, St. Louis to San Francisco, 1858-1861, and the road west from Fort Concho crossed here. The Goodnight-Loving trail, established in 1866 and trod by tens of thousands of Texas longhorns, came here and turned up east bank of the Pecos for Fort Summer and into Colorado.

Famed ford of the Pecos River, named for abundance of horse and mule skulls lining the banks in the 19th century. Many water-starved animals, stolen in Mexico by Indians and driven along the Comanche war trail, died after drinking too deeply from the river.

After the California gold strike in 1848, Horsehead Crossing became a major landmark on the trail west, as it provided the first water for about 75 miles on the route from the east. Emigrants arriving here either turned northwest along the river or crossed and continued southwest to Comanche Springs at Fort Stockton. In 1858, the crossing became an important stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from St. Louis to San Francisco. An adobe stage stand was built and a ferry put into operation, but both were abandoned in 1861, when mail service was terminated.

In late 1862, during the Civil War, federal forces kept a close watch at the crossing in reaction to a threatened confederate invasion. Cattle began to be trailed across the Pecos in 1864, and in 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed their famous trail, which came to this point and turned upriver.

Completion of two railroads across west Texas in the early 1880s caused abandonment of the crossing.