Trail Of Fact And Fable

A quiet click in a digital archive set off a bigger question: how did a tidy tale about the  “Western Trail” in 1873 outrun the dusty, documented truth of 1874? We follow the breadcrumb trail from a glossy magazine headline to the rail-choked streets of Dodge City, where buffalo hides, not longhorns, drove the economy. From there, we trace John T. Lytle’s government contract to feed the Sioux, the mapped river crossings, and the August 1, 1874 deadline that defined the first verified drive.

Along the way, we meet J. Frank Dobie—ranch-born, campus-bound, and unapologetically devoted to story over footnote. Dobie prized living voices more than ledgers, and he found a perfect partner in Frank Collinson, an Englishman turned cowboy who wrote his memories decades after the fact. Collinson likely helped gather cattle in late 1873 and later fused that groundwork with the 1874 trailblazing into one clean narrative. It’s a classic compression: a roundup becomes a “first drive,” and a modern brand name—“Great Western Trail”—is retrofitted to the past until it feels original.

We don’t stop at debunking. We explore why these stories endure, how civic branding amplified a legend, and what’s at stake when heritage tourism, folklore, and archival history collide. The lesson isn’t to toss out the campfire tale. It’s to read it alongside the map: let the archive keep the dates straight while the storytellers keep the culture alive. By the end, you’ll see how a name, a narrative, and a single year can redirect the memory of the West—and why holding fact and fable in tension gives us a richer, more honest past.

If this journey changed how you think about Western history, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who loves a good trail story.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Promising Article, A Bad Timeline
• 2:55 Dodge City In 1873, Not A Cowtown
• 6:10 Dobie’s Mission And Method
• 10:45 Collinson, The Charming Exaggerator
• 14:05 Lytle’s 1874 Contract And Route
• 18:20 The 1873 Gathering Versus 1874 Drive
• 21:40 Why Dobie Chose The Better Story
• 24:20 Bones Of History And Campfire Lore

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

It began, as these things often do, not with a gunshot, but with the quiet click of a mouse. In the digital glow of the archives, our producer, Mike King, was tracing the origins of a river of cattle, the Western Trail, blazed by John T. Lytle in 1874. His screen illuminated a magazine article. Its title, Bold and Confident, The Great Western Trail. The document promised a revelation. It presented a compelling figure. An Englishman, Frank Collinson, a man of letters and muscle hired by Lytle himself. The prose was vivid, painting a first-hand account of a journey in December 1873. Here at last was a voice from the beginning. A man the respected author J. Frank Doby would later call one of the most powerful men I have ever met. A civilized observer documenting the untamed frontier as the first herds pushed north. It was a perfect foundational story. And it was a complete and utter departure from the truth. As Mike read, a sense of profound unease settled in. A single sharp note of dissonance. A shadow fell across the page. First, the timeline. The article places Collinson on the trail in 1873. But the Western Trail, the actual Western Trail, also known as the Dodge City Trail, wasn't established by Lytle until 1874, a full year after this supposed journey. Then the name, the Great Western Trail. It sounds magnificent, doesn't it? Authentic. It is, in fact, a 21st-century invention. A phantom, born around 2003 in the meeting rooms of local rotary clubs and heritage tourism boards, desperate to compete with the colossal fame of the Chisholm Trail. And the final fatal crack in the edifice. Frank Collinson, the story's hero, never traveled the trail in 1873. He was just herding cattle. This is the story of a story. A tale of how history is not just lived but manufactured. How a name coined for a brochure can rewrite the past, and how the fog of memorialization can obscure the very truth it claims to honor. From our studio in Dodge City, this is the Wild West Podcast. And I'm your host, Brad Smalley. Today we explore the storyteller's trail: Dobie, Collinson, and the Shadow of the Plains. In 1873, the atmosphere in southwestern Kansas was laced with a unique combination of dust, the scent of curing hides, and a metallic tang. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad had arrived the previous year in 1872, laying its tracks across the plains like a surgeon's careful stitch. The town, initially named Buffalo City, had been renamed Dodge City in a hurried and almost tumultuous fashion. At this point in time, Dodge City had not yet claimed its title as Queen of the Cowtowns. That recognition would come later, along with a transformed economy. In 1873, Dodge City was primarily a hub for buffalo, where the main shipments involved not longhorns, but vast quantities of hides brought in by the hunters. The arrival of the railroad opened up a direct route to eastern markets, and the town itself became a frantic testament to urgency, characterized by one-story frame buildings, hastily erected, often positioned to skew on their owner's property. Front Street, the bustling main thoroughfare, was a chaotic split flanking the new tracks, known as a place where the business of vice thrived. Both supporters and detractors agreed on one thing. It was the wickedest little city in America. This title was hard-earned. In 1872, with a population of just 500, Dodge City recorded at least 25 murders, leading to a murder rate of five per hundred residents. It was said with a grim sort of pride that only in Dodge could a person break all Ten Commandments in one day, die with his boots on, and be laid to rest in the infamous Booth Hill Cemetery. Law enforcement was a distant luxury, located 75 miles away. The city's straightforward economy, geared to support the buffalo hunters, revolved around drinking, gambling, and prostitution. Saloons, dance halls, and brothels dominated the commercial landscape. Even the town's mayor, James H. Dog Kelly, owned the Alhambra Saloon. The legendary lawman, Bat Masterson, who arrived later, noted that gambling not only stood as the principal and most profitable industry of the town, but was also regarded as one of the most respectable. This was the documented, verifiable portrayal of Dodge City in 1873. A raw, violent, and chaotic center for buffalo hunters, where streets brimmed with vice, and the future as a major cattle terminus was still three years away. The significant stockyards in the boobing cattle trade truly emerged only in 1876. Into this precise historical moment, a story unfolded. The tale of a 17-year-old Englishman and a vast herd of longhorns. A narrative of the original drive up a new trail. It was an enticing story, perhaps too enticing. In stark contrast to the clamor of Dodge City, James Frank Doby found himself lost in reflection amid the quiet of Austin. Described as a man astride two worlds, he was born on a cattle ranch in Live Oak County, but transitioned to life as an English instructor at the University of Texas by the 1920s. While he was engaged with British literature in the classroom, his thoughts often drifted back to the wild brush country of Texas. Doby was fueled by a profound concern, a deep-seated anxiety about the erosion of cultural heritage. Growing up surrounded by tales of the frontier, he soaked in the oral storytelling tradition that defined Texas. He vividly recalled accounts of renegade longhorns that busted out of northern stockyards and traveled 800 miles to return home, and of vaqueros who encountered ghosts as real as Hamlet's father. As he taught British verse, Dobie worried that much of Texas' rich cultural legacy, much of it unwritten, was at risk of fading away. This apprehension spurred him into action, igniting a mission to become a new kind of scholar. He took on the role of secretary for the Texas Folklore Society, a position he held for twenty-one years. His goal wasn't just to preserve this heritage within libraries and museums, but to bring it to life. Over time, he earned the moniker Storyteller of the Southwest. To do justice to these tales, Dobie believed he must step outside the confines of traditional academic history. He rebelled against convention, famously opting not to pursue a doctoral degree. He shared a thought that reflected his philosophy. The average PhD thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another. Doby held little interest in bones, or cold-hard facts. He was captivated by the living narratives. While biographer Stephen L. Davis might have labeled him a folklorist, Doby didn't conform to the image of a scientific folklorist overly focused on evidence. His open-minded approach led him to distinguish clearly between two different paths. He confided to historian C. L. Sonishon, who, according to some accounts, felt slighted by Doby's perspective. But I believe, Doby explained, that when you write history, you must stick to the facts. When you're telling a story, though, it has to be a good one. This belief became the cornerstone of what it meant to be the storyteller of the Southwest. The divide was clear. Facts were part of history, a sterile graveyard of bones, while a story had to capture the audience. As a cultural preservationist and progressive activist, Dobie viewed a good story as a crucial tool for saving Texas cultural inheritance from being lost to time. An accurate historian, the term later used by academics to describe what Doby was not, might be bound by conflicting facts. But a person with a liberated mind was free to shape the narrative. To cultivate Texas literature, Dobie sought more than mere bones. He needed captivating stories and extraordinary storytellers. It was then that he discovered the perfect one. Frank Collinson is a name that stands out. To J. Frank Doby, he was the quintessential figure of the frontier, a romantic archetype that Dobie revered. In his writings, Dobie painted a vivid portrait of Collinson, describing him as one of the most powerful men I have ever met, and highlighting how he arrived in Texas as a young man shortly after the Civil War had ended. Collinson captivated his audience not only with his physical presence, but also with his literary flair. An educated Englishman, he made his way to Texas in 1872 at just seventeen years old, making him an ideal storyteller. He wasn't merely a rugged cowboy. He brought with him the perspective of civilization, as Dobie noted. More significantly, he was an Englishman infused with imagination and a thirst for primitive nature. In many ways, Collinson was a character in his own right. His life could easily fill a compelling narrative. Yet a scientific folklorist might hesitate to fully accept Dobie's admiration at face value. A glance into historical archives reveals a more complex, perhaps less reliable, image of Frank Collinson as a chronicler. He claimed to have started writing about the Old West at the age of seventy-nine. This wasn't a spontaneous diary swirling with dust of the trail, but rather a reminiscence crafted over sixty years after the events filtered through a lifetime of experiences. In addition, his writings weren't scholarly works. They consisted of a series of articles published in the popular magazine Ranch Romances. His memoir, Life in the Saddle, came out posthumously in 1963 and was edited and arranged by Mary Watley Clark. By the standards of accurate history, these writings do not qualify as primary sources. They are late-in-life reflections in a romance magazine, edited long after Collinson's passing. The telltale sign lies in the assessment from the Handbook of Texas Online, an institution dedicated to factual history, something Dobie often found sterile. While it concedes that Collinson's insights into the cattle industry and the frontier make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Southwest Frontier, it also includes an important caveat. Despite the fact that Collinson was known for occasional exaggeration. This was the man Doby chose to spotlight, a 79-year-old narrator known for his occasional exaggeration, yet brimming with a lust for primitive nature. Rather than being a flaw, this tendency toward exaggeration became his hallmark, making his accounts agreeable, if loose, and securing his reputation as a good storyteller. The narrative that Doby would elevate, one that would ultimately shape the mythology of the West, was Collinson's account of a singular cattle drive. Collinson claimed it was the first trip up the Great Western Trail, a journey he said took place in 1873. This is the pivotal moment when two worlds meet. On one side, the factual account of the storyteller of the Southwest, and on the other, the lore surrounding the transference of bones from an archive. As with any thorough investigation, we need to establish a timeline. The narrative unfolds as a story of two trails, one rooted in fact, and the other steeped in folklore, run in parallel yet divided by a crucial year. In the late winter of 1873, a rancher from South Texas named John T. Lytle secured an important U.S. government contract. With the Red River War on the horizon, the Sioux, relocated to the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska, were in desperate need of food. Lytle's job was to supply beef for the Sioux. He was tasked with delivering 3,500 head of large-aged steers from South Texas to Camp Robinson, Nebraska, with a strict deadline of August 1, 1874. This endeavor marked the inception of the Western Trail. On March 16, 1874, Lytle set forth with his first trail outfit, consisting of 18 men, including a cook and two seasoned horse wranglers with 100 horses. The journey was more than a trail. It was a mapping expedition through unknown country. The archival records, derived from the accounts of Lytle's drovers, provide the bones of the Odyssey. They beat out a trail, crossing the Lano River at Beef Trail Crossings and the Sansaba River at Peg Lake Crossing. They found their way out of the hill country at Cow Gap. Upon reaching Fort Griffin, the crew was so unfamiliar with the surrounding terrain that the government had to assign them a military guide. Champ means, who was well versed in the landscape and its water sources. This region was one of tenuous peace, cutting directly through Comanche territory. Some of Lytle's cowboys bore the scars of personal loss to Comanche raiders. Meanwhile, the Comanches themselves were starving, living on wormy flour and diseased beef, supplied by government rations. Lytle and his trail bosses had to negotiate safe passage, often offering a few beeves in return for slow movement across the fertile grasslands. Lytle's herd progressed at about 15 miles each day, navigating the dry stretches of Nebraska between the Platte Rivers. By August 1, 1874, they met their deadline, delivering the herd to the Red Cloud Agency with no loss of cattle. This marked the first drive up the Western Trail. The year was 1874. The destination was Nebraska, and the mission was to fulfill a government contract. The cowtown of Dodge City was a brief stop along the way, merely a point on the map validated by Lytle's journey. But it was not his final destination. Now we turn our attention to the narrative championed by Jay Frank Dobie. This version centers on the tale of Englishman Frank Collinson's account of the first trip up the Great Western Trail, explicitly setting the year as 1873. The destination is implied to be the new railhead at Dodge City. The contradiction is striking and immediate. If Lytle and his team were busy beating out a trail in 1874, guided by champ means through unknown country, then what trail was Frank Collinson traversing in 1873? If Lytle was indeed the first to blaze the trail, then Collinson's claim must be called into question. Furthermore, if Collinson was on a cattle drive in 1873, where was he headed? As we've established, the wickedest little city of Dodge was then a buffalo town, with its cattle shipping infrastructure yet to be established. This stands as the central flaw in the good story. The facts, the bones, simply do not align. The timeline is off by a year. The trail doesn't exist in the way described, and the destination is misaligned. At this point, a diligent historian might simply note the discrepancy, marking it in red ink and dismissing the account. However, a deeper explanation of the archive reveals a subtler truth a smoking gun hidden in plain sight within the very snippet that supports the Collison narrative. The excerpt states: Lytle hired Collinson as a drover in December 1873 to help gather longhorns. The missing piece of the puzzle is readily apparent. Lytle's drive in 1874 was a monumental logistical operation that began with an equally monumental prologue. The gathering of thousands of free-ranging longhorns from across the New Aces Strip. This gathering kicked off in late 1873, during which Frank Collinson played a role. Hired by Lytle in December 1873, he was indeed part of the first trip, if we include the lengthy and arduous process of assembling the herd. What transpired next is a classic case of embellishment by a 79-year-old exaggerator writing for ranch romances. Decades later, Collinson effortly blended the 1873 gathering with the 1874 Trailblazing into a cohesive heroic narrative, essentially merging two distinct events into one more engaging story. It was a minor exaggeration, a loose retelling, a good story indeed. And J. Frank Doby, the master storyteller, let it stand. The academic consensus that J. Frank Doby wasn't an accurate historian is spot on. However, this conclusion overlooks a crucial aspect. It confuses Doby's intentions with what some perceive as shortcomings. Doby's choice to embrace the Collinson narrative, the 1873 story, wasn't a blunder. It was rooted in his philosophy. A scientific folklorist would have felt bound by the facts from 1874. Lytle, while an accurate historian would have been driven to clarify Collinson's mix-up, distinguishing between the 1873 gathering and the 1874 drive. This historian would have zeroed in on John T. Lytle, his government contract, and his military guide, the key components of the operation. But Dobie's mind was liberated. The inscription on his headstone reads: I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good of life on Earth. This liberation wasn't just political. Although he was a progressive activist, advocating for the integration of the University of Texas in the 1940s, it extended to how he viewed knowledge. It signified a freeing from dull facts. For Doby, the heart of Collinson's story resonated much more profoundly with Texas cultural heritage than the strict logistical account offered by Lytle. Which narrative was better? A tale about a government contract aimed at feeding the Sioux? Or an account of eighteen men, a cook, and a military guide trudging 15 miles a day to meet an August 1st deadline. Those are the bones of history. Or was it about a young vigor Englishman, just 17 years old, who possessed the perspective of civilization along with a lust for primitive nature, stepping into the unknown to carve the first trail. Dobie made his choice. He opted for the good story. He embraced the myth. In the end, history comes in two forms. The first type lives in the catacombs lined with the remains of dead trees, curated by the accurate historian. This version of history is preserved by academics and stored in repositories like the Whitliffe Collections and the Harry Ransom Center. It is made up of documented facts, primary sources, footnotes, and thorough revisions. In this narrative, the Western Trail was established by John T. Lytle in 1874, representing the history of bones. Then there's the second kind of story. On a soft autumn evening, one can wander into a ghost town in South Texas called Oakville, where a festival known as Dobie's Dicos, sayings of Dobie, takes place. Here the stage is fashioned from the bed of a rusted old pickup truck, and the air is licked by the flames of a campfire. An audience gathers in their lawn chairs, and as the sun sets, we pay tribute to Dobie by sharing his works. While an academic consensus holds that J. Frank Doby was not an accurate historian in the grand scheme, that distinction loses its importance. The accurate historians may have triumphed in the graveyard of the archive. Yet J. Frank Doby truly captured the spirit of the campfire. The captivating tale of Frank Collinson's 1873 journey, with all its exaggerations and loose interpretations, lives on in the popular imagination, eclipsing the factual details of Lytle's 1874 contract. This was Dobie's mission from the start, to breathe life into that heritage. He succeeded in crafting Texas literature precisely because he was not bound by the constraints of being an accurate historian.