This 1824 German map of Arkansas Territory is a lot more illuminating than many others from the same period I've encountered.

Zebulon Pike's journey to the Red River was beset with problems and intrigue.

Muriel Wright and Chester Howe explained different versions of how the state of Oklahoma achieved its name.

In 1868, a battle between native Plains warriors and American settlers took place at White Creek where Cooke, Denton and Wise counties meet.

A new Oklahoma county named Swanson would boast Mountain Park as its temporary county seat in 1910-1911.

The Red River is a shifty river, but that's not meant as an insult.

From 1893 to 1920, Rainy Mountain Indian School "Americanized" children from the Kiowa and Apache tribes, and now lies as an unmarked ruin.

Sanborn Maps from the 1880s tell me that the burning building was the Crockett Hotel in Bonham, Texas.

Wegefarth County was platted and promoted in 1873 to white homesteaders to push out native people.

One of the most historic places in Grayson County, Texas is Waterloo Lake in Denison, fed by Sand Springs, a natural watering hole.

If you search "Cash Point" in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, on a map today, you'd find RV Park bearing the name, and not much else.

The Cossatot River derives from a French word meaning"crushed head," and in 1833, it was to be spanned by a toll bridge.

The Cross Timbers is well defined on this 1844 map by Josiah Gregg.

The Central National Road connected Dallas, Texas to Washington, Arkansas.

Medicine Mound is southwest of Chillicothe in Hardeman County, Texas along what was once the Kansas, Mexico & Orient Railway.

Mercer's Colony in northeast Texas received permission in January of 1844 to form a separate land grant process from Peters Colony.

What may be the final photo of the ferry at Fulton, Hempstead County, Arkansas which crossed the Red River just below the Great Bend.

Between 1809 and 1819, a young American named Henry Ker traveled up the Red River from its mouth to its far western reaches search of gold.

The only available photographic documentation of an execution carried out by the Choctaw Nation's Lighthorsemen.

One of my favorite maps of the Red River is Nicolas de Fer's illustrated map published in France in 1718.