REPORT
ON THE
GEOGRAPHY, TOPOGRAPHY, AND GEOLOGY
OF THE
LLANO ESTACADO OR STAKED PLAINS
WITH NOTES ON THE
GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY WEST OF THE PLAINS
BY
W. F. CUMMINS.
The name Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, is applied to the high"
ORIGIN OF THE NAME.—The origin of the name, "Llano Estacado," or "Staked Plains." is not definitely known. There are a number of traditions, but after having examined thoroughly every one I could hear of, and failing to establish the authenticity of any one of them, the matter still remains in doubt.
Mr. Kendall, who traveled with the Santa Fe expedition from San Antonio to Santa Fe, in 1842, and afterwards wrote and published a report of the expedition, says: 'This Plain was called Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) by the New Mexicans." (Vol. I, p. 219.) He gives no information, however, as to the origin of the name.
Captain R. B. Marcy says: "I was told in New Mexico that many years since the Mexicans marked out a route with stakes across this Plain where they found water; and hence the name by which it is known throughout Mexico of El Llano Estacado or Staked Plains." (Marcy's Explorations of Red River, p. 92.)
Captain Marcy gives no date where, nor direction in which this route was staked out, and so there is no way to verify his report.
In the Pacific Railroad Reports. Vol. II, p. 8, in a report made by Captain Pope, he says: "Upon the eastern or left bank of the River Pecos commences the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, which derives its name from an early tradition that in early times the Spaniards staked a road on it from San Antonio, Texas, to Santa Fe, in New Mexico."
There is no authentic information that there ever was such a road staked off, by the Spaniards or anybody else, between those two places across the Plains, but the route of travel was down the Rio Grande, and it is not probable that such a road was made, for the reason that a much better way, with plenty of water, could be found along the Pecos river.
In "Notes Taken," by Parker, p. 161, he says: "It is said that formerly a road was staked off across the Plains by the old Mexicans for the use of traders, hence its name."
He does not give any date or direction in which the road was supposed to run, so there is no means of testing the truthfulness of this tradition.
In a circular issued by the Union Pacific Railroad, the writer says: "It is related that the fathers, in 1734,en route from Santa Fe visiting San Saba, set up stakes with buffalo heads, so that others might follow the trail, and hence the name."
This statement is probably taken from ThralPs History of Texas, who says, on p. 23: "It is conjectured that in 1734, when the fathers from Santa Fe visited San Saba to establish a fort and mission they set up stakes with buffalo heads on them, so that others might follow their route. This gave the name Llano Estacado to the plateau crossed."
As the mission and fort of San Saba was not established until 1757, and not by the fathers from Santa Fe, but by the fathers from what is now the eastern part of Texas, this conjecture can not be true.
In a recent private letter from Amando Chaves, Superintendent of Public Instruction of New Mexico, he says: "It is reported that a party of Spaniards, who had come to this country for the purpose of mining for gold, made a camp near where old Fort Sumner is now situated, and not finding any gold, they got in very destitute circumstances, and when a party of Comanches came from their hunting grounds somewhere to the east, part of the Spaniards returned with them to get supplies, and after securing a quantity of dried buffalo meat they undertook to return to their camp on the Pecos, when they became bewildered on the Plains, and separated into different parties. One of the parties reached the camp, and on returning to hunt for and assist their lost comrades, they loaded some of their mules with stakes, and at given distances set up stakes and surrounded them with mounds of earth, so that they might be enabled to retrace their steps, and in this way the Plains came to be called the Llano Estacado."
As no dates are given, nor the exact direction in which this road was made, there can be no particular certainty attached to this tradition from the "Oldest Inhabitant."
In 1540, Coronado went into winter quarters on the Rio Grande, near the mouth of the Pecos river. In 1541 he crossed the river and traveled in a north-east course on to the Plains, and continued probably as far north as Kansas. On the way he saw a great many buffalo and prairie dogs and found Indians living intents of skins.
That route would have taken him only across the lower plains, and where he would have encountered the buffalo in the vicinity of Big Springs, and that may have been then, as it was afterwards, the hunting-grounds of the Comanche Indians. That tribe, in later years, occupied a large district of country and had their principal towns along the upper Red River. The range of the buffalo was never much south of Big Springs, and did not extend further than sixty or seventy miles west of the eastern escarpment of the Staked Plains.
Now if these Spaniards established their camp, as Mr. Chaves suggests, in the vicinity of where Fort Sumner was afterwards built, in order to reach the hunting grounds of the Comanches a part of the Plains would have had to be crossed over, which would give to the tradition some plausibility.
In Coronado's journal of his trip, in 1541, he speaks of crossing a great plain where there were a great many oxen with bent backs, and small animals living in burrows in the ground, and that the Indians killed many of these oxen and made tents of their skins. He further says that there were no trees by which to make their way, and in order that they might be able to find their way back if necessary, they built great heaps of ox dung to mark their way. This may have given rise to the name or to the tradition that is still held in New Mexico that on an expedition to the Indian country they, carried stakes and set them up.
Another theory has been given by Mr. J. W. Hawes in the American Encyclopedia, 1881, p. 670, who says: "The Llano Estacado or Staked Plains (so called from the great abundance of Yucca stems resembling stakes) extends from the Rio Pecos, in New Mexico, on the west, to the headwaters of the Colorado, Brazos and Red rivers on the east, and from the valley of the Canadian on the north to the Pecos on the south."
This theory will not bear the test of examination, for the simple reason that the Yucca plant with its stake-like stems does not grow upon the high plateau of the Staked Plain, but is very abundant west of it.
Another tradition is this, given in a communication published in the Dallas News:
"The Indians crossing into New—then a part of Old -Mexico in any kind of weather used neither guide nor compass, but the Mexicans attempting the same in buffalo hunting and trading expeditions would invariably get lost and frequently perish. To avoid this they drove down a stake—estaca-at the edge of the plain, another further on, from which the first could be plainly seen, and so on, ad infinitum, so that they could retrace their path in case they found no water * * * Of course after the trails by the principal water holes became distinctly worn the stake system was discontinued, but the name survived. I was told this by an old Mexican living at Puerto de Luna (Doorof the Moon) and who had crossed the Plains long ere Stephen F. Austin ever set foot on Texas soil."
Yet another theory is that it was so named from the fact that there are high escarpments on three sides of it, which at a distance have the appearance of huge fortifications.
It is suggested that the word from which our Staked Plains is derived is not the one that was originally used. That instead of Llano Estacado it ought to be Llano Estacada. Estacado is the perfect participle of estacar, which means staked plains. Estacada in the Spanish language means a palisade, and it is supposed that the term was used in reference to the Staked Plains in the accommodated sense in which we use the term palisade in the English language.
It is supposed that the two words became confounded and changed at some later period, and that some one in attempting to explain the origin of the then used term estacado invented the theory of putting stakes across the Plains as guides.
No matter what may have been the origin of the term, nor whether the name has been properly handed down as originally used or not, the name Llano Estacado or Staked Plains has been so long used and so well established in the literature of the countrythat it would be useless to attempt to substitute another name now.