First of all, one of the major waypoints for their cattle drive seems to be Fort Worth. Looking on google maps, modern day Fort Worth appears to be effectively a large suburb of Dallas (all due respect to Fort Worthians). However, Dallas is not mentioned once in the book. Were they separate and distinct enough in the 1880s that there'd be no reason to mention Dallas if you're passing to the west of Fort Worth? Or perhaps it came along later but grew more quickly?
Second, there's a lot of talk about travel from Fort Smith, Arkansas, down to Fort Worth, Texas. (Again no mention of Dallas). But my question here is more logistical. The people in question are travelling on horse back and have no real knowledge of the route. This appears to be a distance of about 300 miles. I estimate this would take a month to walk, but how long would this take on horse back? And how would these people not get lost along a a 300 mile stretch of land with just the odd house dotted here and there. Would it have been a marked or at least well trodden trail? Roscoe, one of the characters on this journey, seems not to know where he's going and yet he manages to keep roughly on track and I'm struggling to envisage how that is/was possible.
Thirdly, is Blue Duck based on a historical figure? I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Duck_(outlaw) which could be about right but I'm not sure.
And finally, I've not been able to find a town called Lonesome Dove on Google maps so I'm assuming its fictional based on a typical small town somewhere around the Rio Grande, I wouldn't mind if someone could confirm or disavow me of this notion!
If you happen to know the book and intend to incorporate some of the narrative into your answers, please bear in mind i'm about half way through so please keep it spoiler free!
I can help with a few notes:
Lonesome Dove is set in the late 1870s (the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn is joked about in Chapter 93), when Fort Worth is the end of the Texas & Pacific/Missouri & Pacific railroad line linking North Texas to St. Louis and to Eastern meat markets. Fort Worth had been on the Chisholm Trail* that linked South Texas ranching country with Abilene, Kansas—the end for a few years of an earlier railroad link. So Fort Worth had a particular importance as the trading center for the longhorn cattle ranched in post-Civil War Texas, and therefore it would be logical for someone associated with cattle, such as Jake Spoon, to pass through and be known there. Though Fort Worth might look like a suburb of Dallas, historically it predates Dallas (as evidenced by the name, established when the area was a frontier for European settlers) and had become a small city a decade before Dallas began to grow. The two cities, 30 miles apart, grew quite independently, fierce rivals, until the end of the 20th century.
As for the route Roscoe Brown would take from Fort Smith to Texas, the novel mentions (end of Chapter 51) that there was an easy road to follow, laid out by Captain Marcy. That’s true—but it was a road westward, toward Santa Fe by way of the Texas Panhandle (essentially today’s Interstate 40). But Arkansas, settled for nearly 50 years by then, had other roads and traces through the forest, including those skirting the eastern edge of the Kiamichi Mountains southward from Fort Smith to the sandy-loam farmland and timberlands of Southwest Arkansas and Northeast Texas. Roscoe discusses (in Chapter 43) the difficulties of finding his way based on asking the inhabitants, but he would have found his way south, probably avoiding the Indian Territory (today’s Oklahoma) for various reasons (including a graphic warning from the soldiers), to cross the Red River and enter Northeast Texas near Piney Point, Richmond, Index, or Fulton (all near modern Texarkana). The small group of soldiers he meets tells him all he has to do is to hold a southwest course and he’ll find San Antonio. That's a practical way of navigating on open prairies, on a sunny day—but "southwest" is a hard concept to keep in mind when working your way through forests and underbrush. One of the reasons he decides to let Janey accompany him is that she mentions having walked from San Antonio, meaning she might know the way back there.
The town of Lonesome Dove is a literary invention, whose name McMurtry said came from a cemetery he spotted in North Texas.
^*Technically, ^the ^Chisholm ^Trail ^generally ^refers ^to ^the ^main ^route ^north ^from ^a ^crossing ^of ^the ^Red ^River. ^But ^several ^tributary ^trails ^converged ^on ^that ^crossing, ^including ^ones ^that ^passed ^Fort ^Worth.
Hello, I’m an historian that specializes in Texas and local histories. I’ve never read “Lonesome Dove” (or seen the movie) but I have done a lot of research on the Old West time period in Texas.
In the 1870s, especially in the later parts of the decade, there were hundreds of cattle trails that criss-crossed Texas. All of them generally led to the same destinations, and a vast majority actually followed older trails as well. For instance, the Chisholm Trail (which is probably the most well known of the bunch from this time) actually parallels a number of older routes. One of these is the Butterfield Overland Mail Route which was in operation from 1858-1861.
When it comes to Fort Worth, the settlement there does pre-date Dallas. It was originally surveyed in 1848, had a verily bustling population prior to the Civil War, and literally exploded in numbers when the railroad arrived. It became a hub for cattle drivers and cowpokes in the 1870s, and was even considered to be a type of resort for cowboys. Entertainment, saloons, good quality stores, and the barnyards (which is still a high touristy landmark in Fort Worth today). In essence, Fort Worth was the place you wanted to be if you were a cowpuncher! https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hdf01
In pure speculation, it’s often been said, that the community of Lonesome Dove is loosely based on Laredo, Texas. Again, I have not read the book, so I can cannot confirm or deny this. Honestly, the author is probably the only one who could affirm that theory.
In regards to how far someone could travel on horseback, I will offer this explanation. In 1684, centuries before Lonesome Dove, a Spanish exploration expedition were able to make a 300 mile trek from the Rio Grande to the present day Llano River (at a spot just west of Mason, Texas) in about 2 1/2 months. That’s also including going in a non-direct route, through mountains and prairies, and having to spend several days waiting for Apache war bands to pass through before proceeding. When the Spaniards were returning to the Rio Grande, they made the same journey via a much more risky route through some of the most desolate and waterless regions of Western Texas in about the same time.
Also, before concluding, I would also like to note that the western frontier of Texas in the 1870s was anything but isolated. By the time that the story seems to take place in, late 1870s, there were a vast quantity of newly established settlements in that part of Texas...even some newly formed counties. In addition, there were also a lot of military outposts and stageline stations.
I hope this helps!
Very much worth noting that Ft. Worth and Dallas, despite sharing an airport, appearing close on maps, and often being mentioned in the same breath by laymen (eg, "the Dallas-Ft. Worth area") are still very different. I've lived in both, and they're both culturally and geographically extremely distinct. Ft. Worth is definitely not a Dallas suburb, and if you're discussing it, there's still not necessarily a reason to mention Dallas (unless it's in the context of how frequently out-of-towners conflate the two!). In UK terms, I imagine it would be a bit like lumping Manchester and Liverpool together. As I understand it, neither are "suburbs" of the other, but the two are now connected in megalopolis fashion by all of the suburbs in between them.
Just trying to provide a little modern-day context!