Trail Dust -- Cleburne TX - Murals on Waymarking.com

Also in Wright Plaza are 4 smaller murals on what appears to be arched windows on history in a brick and stone building. The perspective work on these murals is well done. The action in the mural looks like it is coming toward you.

This particular mural features a map of the main Chisholm Trail, with its subsidiary and collector trails. Those subtrails served cities where cattle would be herded before heading north. Cattle were gathered from all across south, central, and west Texas at these collection points, then driven onto the main trail heading north, joining others already on the hoof.

The Chisholm Trail on the mural looks like what it was -- a river of cattle. Major cities on the Chisholm Trail are noted: San Antonio, Austin, Cleburne, Fort Worth, and Red River Station (now Denison). The trail ended at railheads at Dodge City KS, Abilene KS, and Ellsworth KS.

Around the map is a depiction of a scene on the Chisholm Trail cattle drive, with cowboys on horseback calmly herding vast numbers of hardy Texas Longhorn cattle up the trail. One of the cowboys is black, reminding us that one in three cowboys was black during the cattle drive era. Source: (visit link)

Blasterz think that the black cowboy could be a nod to Bose Ikard, a famous black cowboy who rode with Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving on their cattle drives. Although Ikard eventually settled in neighboring Parker County and probably never rode the Chisholm Trail through Johnson County, he was still famous for his character and exploits.

When Ikard died, he was buried in Weatherford's Greenwood Cemetery. Charles Goodnight himself commissioned a granite headstone for Ikard's grave with the epitaph "Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior." Ikard's grave is now marked with a state historic marker.

For more on Bose Ikard, see (visit link)

More on the Chisholm trail can be found here: (visit link) and here: (visit link)

City: Cleburne Location Name: Wright Plaza, 205 Caddo St Artist: Stylle Read Date: after 2010 Media: unknown paint on stucco or plaster Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/20/2013 Beetlebub visited it 01/26/2013 Benchmark Blasterz visited it

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