Coyote Lake is one of numerous natural salt lakes in the Texas Panhandle. Although its waters are brackish, they have at various times served Indians, buffalo hunters, and thirsty cattle on hot, dry days. With a shoreline of over six and a half miles and a bed area of 829 acres, it is one of the largest of the region’s many saline lakes. In early days, the Comanches controlled this area, but after the 1874 Battle of Adobe Walls, they no longer hindered settlement of the Staked Plains. Artifacts found near the shore show that it was once a favorite Comanche campsite. Even while Indians were still a menace, buffalo hunters swarmed into the Panhandle and often camped on Coyote Lake, killing so many buffalo by 1877 that the southern herd, once numbering millions, nearly became extinct. From 1885 to about 1910, the lake served as a watering spot for cattle on the huge XIT Ranch, which covered 3,050,000 acres of the western Panhandle. In 1898, when the Pecos and Northern Texas Railroad was built through Bovina 30 miles north, the lake watered thousands of cattle being driven from southern ranches to the railroad and then to northern markets.