The toughest man

True West has an article by Johnny D. Boggs  about The Toughest Man West of the Pecos:

"Chisum! John Chisum! Weary. Saddle worn.”
Sorry. Every time I think of John Simpson Chisum, I think of the 1970 John Wayne movie Chisum and Andrew J. Fenady’s theme song.
Though highly entertaining, Chisum is not a classic movie, and Fenady’s probably better known for the theme song Johnny Yuma for his television hit, The Rebel, but Chisum (Fenady also produced and wrote the screenplay) has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. And William Conrad’s voice just gives me goose bumps:

“They say that you can’t make it. Will you hark to what they’ve said? Or will you move your beeves from Texas across the River Red? They’re betting you can’t make it. But you bet your life they’re wrong. So keep riding toward the Pecos to find where you belong.”

So here I am, in Texas, not far from that Red River, when suddenly it hits me. If Chisum is taking his cattle to New Mexico, why would he cross the River Red? Oklahoma isn’t exactly on the way.
But Paris (Texas, not France) is where the John Chisum story begins, even if he was born in Tennessee in 1824. By 1837 he was in Texas. He clerked in a store in Paris, and would hold office as Lamar County clerk from 1852-54. He even operated several groceries. After he died in 1884, he was buried here, resting beside his parents, Claiborne and Lucinda.
They haven’t forgotten Chisum here. In May of 2013, the local VFW post put on John Chisum Days at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds. And, at the Paris Public Library, Jerry Bywaters painted a three by six-foot mural as part of the Public Works of Art Project back in 1934. The mural even looks like John Chisum, and not Duke Wayne. Bywaters was a Paris native, but I’m doubting Bywaters would have painted John Chisum had Chisum stuck to grocery stores. And I can’t picture the Duke playing a grocery baron in a movie.
Chisum teamed up with Stephen K. Fowler of New Orleans, Louisiana and entered the cattle business in Denton County, which meant Chisum would have crossed the Trinity river, not the Red.
Near Sanger, about three miles north of Bolivar, and you take Chisum Road and Jingle Bob Trail to get there, is a 1936 Texas Centennial Marker on the site of Chisum’s home, known as the White House, from 1856-62. Of course, the marker has Chisum dying on 22 September (it was 22 December) in Paris (it was actually Eureka Springs, Arkansas). Another marker, erected by the Texas Historical Commission in 1970, notes the town of Bolivar, founded in 1852, and mentions Chisum as a “Texas cattle baron, who had herds here and furnished beef to the Confederacy during the Civil War.”
If you need something more substantial than roadside markers for your history, head to Denton and the Courthouse-on-the-Square Museum, located on the first floor of the 1896 courthouse. Or, better yet, spend plenty of time in that classic cow town, Fort Worth.
By the 1860s, Chisum had established himself as a cattle baron, running five thousand head and owning six slaves in North Texas. When the Civil War broke out, instead of joining the Confederate army, Chisum was placed in charge of cattle herds. In 1862, he drove a herd to Confederate forces near Vicksburg, Mississippi, but a year later he was again on the move.
Ending his partnership with Fowler, Chisum moved toward the Concho River country. Before long, Chisum and his new associates had roughly eighteen thousand head of cattle. Around this time, Chisum came up with his brand, the Long Rail, and his ear-lopping technique, the Jinglebob.
After the Civil War, he drove cattle to Bosque Redondo at Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory, and even partnered with another cattle legend, Charles Goodnight.

Rico says there's much more to the article but, as usual, he can't get their damned website to recognize his subscription number, sorry...