Old Tascosa was first an Indian camping place at a crossing on the Canadian River, then a Mexican trading point and pastoral settlement, and as Atascosa, meaning Boggy Place, it rapidly became an open-range trading center and the capital of a cattle empire from 1876 to 1887. In the 1870s and 1880s it drew pleasure-seeking cowboys, gamblers, and bad men of the Panhandle, and outlaws such as Billy the Kid and lawmen like Pat Garrett and Bat Masterson walked its streets. Romero Plaza and the Howard and Rinehart store marked its boom in growth, and struggles between large ranch owners like Charles Goodnight and the Little Men of the plains were focused there. It became the seat of Oldham County in 1880 and the legal capital of ten unorganized counties. Its decline came with progress: the railroad in 1887 created other important towns, barbed wire fences ended vital trading routes and great roundups, and the open ranges and cattle trails, including the Dodge City Trail, were gone. When the county seat moved to Vega in 1915, few residents remained. Today Old Tascosa retains only the courthouse and Boot Hill, and Cal Farley's Boys Ranch is located there.