CATTLE TRAILS: There were (2) historic Trails, almost forgotten in songs and western lore around the campfire...cattle trails from Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana, THE OPELOUSAS TRAIL AND THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL. THE OPELOUSAS TRAIL retraced and ran parallel to the OLD SPANISH TRAIL for (102) years, before rail service was completed with the first rail bridge over the Sabine River at Orange, Texas, that linked Houston, Texas with New Orleans, Louisiana, THE CRESCENT CITY, for the first time. Their decades of the accumulation of cattle tracks have been silently forgotten as Texas's oldest and longest surviving trails.
HUNDLEY WIGGINS, Great Grandfather of Shamrock Shelley Cleaver, owner of over (6,000) acres of prime Cotton and Cattle land in East Texas, supported, financially, a Confederate battalion of Rebels in the way of uniforms, guns, ammunition, horses, and supplies for (3) states on Texas's borders. When the South disappeared with the "Ashes of its memory in the wind," so did the empires of the land. Carpetbaggers, like vultures, preyed on ruined, Large, landowners and Northern money bought and owned what they wanted all along..."the grandeur and wealth of a time short lived, but elegant, prosperous, and gone."
