Surveyed during the Civil War, this road first carried military supplies to Fort Bascom in New Mexico Territory. It later became a route for buffalo hunters traveling to Dodge City with hides and returning with supplies. In the early 1880s, Tascosa became a town, and ox teams and mule teams hauled freight for the Panhandle's cowboy capital and for ranches with annual business reaching into the hundreds of dollars. For a number of years, herds from across the Panhandle also moved over this route into Dodge. In November 1865, Kit Carson and his New Mexico Volunteers came down the trail from Fort Bascom to fight a losing battle with Indians at the First Adobe Walls Site. Stagecoaches ran weekly over the 242 mile route, carrying mail and passengers between Tascosa and Dodge by way of post offices and stage stands including Little Blue, Cator's Zulu Stockade, Hardesty Ranch in "No Man's Land," Jim Lanes Beaver Creek, Hines Crossing, Cimarron, Hoodoo Brown, and Crooked Creek. Brick for the courthouse at the nearby ghost town of Hansford was hauled from Dodge City, and later freight came over the trail from Liberal, Kansas. Ranchers continued using parts of the old trail until 1920, when the railroad crossed the county and Spearman was built, after which the trail was fenced and plowed under.