Interesting Old Cemeteries

Just got back from a little road trip to Texas. On the way down, I did some geocaching. In fact, I found 26 caches on this trip!

The first of the cemeteries in which I found a cache is called Ghost Watching. It is northwest of Amarillo, Texas near the Cal Farley Boys' Ranch which is a home and ranch for placement of children who have all sorts of different types of problems. The cache itself is located in a nearby genuine and authentic boot hill cemetery. The location was apparently known as Old Tascosa at one time and it had a colorful history. The Town's famous "cowboy strike" ended in gunfire, with some of the participants ending up buried at Boot Hill Cemetery which is actually on top of a hill that you can drive up on a rough rocky road. There is a historical marker that lists the people buried there with about half of the 50 people having been murdered. This was all back in the late 1800's. The cache is a magnetic key holder stuck on the back of this sign.

I found the area around Cal Farley's to be a bit strange. I noticed two police cars at the entrance to the ranch another 1/4 mile down the road. There were two other cemeteries nearby. One was a pet boot hill cemetery. The other was a cemetery for people (boys) who had died at the ranch. It was not small.

The second cemetery where I found a cache was called Calm and Windy just a little outside of Claude, Texas. This was a large old cemetery for the surrounding area. The cache was another magnetic key holder that was hidden on the good old fashioned windmill.

Finally, the last cemetery cache I found was in the cemetery by Goodnight, Texas. This cache is called Lonesome Dove - Charles Goodnight Cemetery. Charles Goodnight and family are buried there. This is another old cemetery not quite as large as the one in Claude. According to the cache page, Charles Goodnight is sort of the patron saint of all cowboys. He was instrumental in the development of the cattle industry. The chuckwagon (a cowboy's portable kitchen wagon used on the cattle trails) was invented by Charles Goodnight in 1866. Goodnight was a Texas Ranger and owned the first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle. It was called the JA Ranch and was located in Palo Duro Canyon about nine miles south of Claude. Goodnight helped create one of the major cattle trails, the Goodnight-Loving Trail, which was a cattle drive route from Texas that led into eastern New Mexico and Colorado.

The monument for Goodnight is quite large and along with several other related monuments is surrounded by a 3 foot chain link fence. About 75 bandanas have been tied to the fence by people who have visited.