Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Flat

After visiting Fort Griffin, Vol Fan and I followed the advice of the park worker and visited "The Flat".  The Flat was the town that sprang to life in the shadow of the fort.  It was situated at the base of the plateau where Fort Griffin was located - on the flat land surrounding the Clear Fork of the Brazos River.

The Flat was one of the first true 'Wild West' towns.  The town's principle business was equipping cattle drives and outfitting buffalo hunters.  More than 200,000 buffalo hides were shipped from The Flat.  Since its main customers were cowboys just off the trail, buffalo hunters freshly in from the hunt, and soldiers, businesses such as saloons and bordellos thrived.  It is said that this is where Wyatt Earp first met Doc Holliday.  Other notorious characters that spent time in The Flat were Bat Masterson, Big Nose Kate Elder, and John Wesley Hardin.

Since the location of The Flat is not located within the confines of the state park, the owner of The Flat has been able to move as quickly as he pleases with archeology research and reconstruction of buildings.  Amazing how much faster things work without the bureaucratic red tape!  So he has been able to  reconstruct several buildings, using town maps and drawings of the buildings from the era

The only building that was still standing was the town jail.

It was a very cool place to visit.  I could just close my eyes and imagine the things that took place on that piece of ground.

3 comments:

Busy Bee Suz said...

What an interesting place; if those jail walls could talk??? WOWZA!

George said...

It sounds as if this was quite a place in its hey-day. Are you suggesting that bureaucrats slow things down?

The Sequin Singer said...

Really cool! Can you go into the jail? Following you now through Bloglovin! Thanks for commenting!