Explore the real-world places that appear in Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Austin, Republic of Texas, San Antonio, Brazos River Crossing, Llano Estacado (Staked Plains), Red River Country and 6 more.
Colorado River — Where young Gus and Call begin their Ranger lives
The novel opens in the raw frontier town of Austin, capital of the young Republic of Texas. Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, not yet twenty, are green Rangers who sign on for Caleb Cobb's scheme to seize Santa Fe. The town is where their friendship and the contrast between the talkative Gus and the stern Call are established.
Austin was founded in 1839 as the capital of the Republic of Texas under President Mirabeau B. Lamar, and was named for Stephen F. Austin. It was a small, exposed frontier outpost often threatened by Comanche raids and Mexican incursions.
Austin is the capital of Texas and a large modern city. The Texas State Capitol and the Bullock Texas State History Museum offer a window into the Republic era.
Visit: Bullock Texas State History Museum (museum)
San Antonio River — Frontier town where Rangers gather
San Antonio is the borderland town where Gus and Call's world of Texans and Mexicans meets. It is where Texans like Gus and Call are tied to the dangers of the Mexican frontier and where Gus, the more social of the two, spends time among the town's cantinas. It is also a staging ground for the Santa Fe venture's recruits and supplies.
San Antonio was established as a Spanish mission and presidio settlement in 1718. After the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 it remained contested by Mexico, with raids as late as 1842.
The Alamo and the River Walk make it one of Texas's top tourist destinations. The Alamo is operated as a historic shrine and museum.
Visit: The Alamo (historic site)
Brazos River — Departure into the wilderness
The Santa Fe expedition's route takes Cobb's Rangers across the Brazos country on their way into the plains. Gus and Call experience their first hardships of river crossings, scarce provisions, and the unfamiliar threat of Comanche and Kiowa territory beyond the settlements. The land grows emptier and less forgiving with every day of the march.
The Brazos River was a major boundary of Anglo-American settlement in Texas in the 1830s and 1840s. Beyond it lay territory held by Comanche bands.
The Brazos is a major river with numerous parks and lakes along its course, including Brazos Bend State Park downstream.
Visit: Brazos Bend State Park (park)
West Texas high plains — The barren heart of the ordeal
The Rangers cross the vast, featureless Llano Estacado, where thirst, fire, and sudden violence strike. Men die from nature as often as from Indian attack, and Gus and Call see the arbitrary brutality McMurtry places at the heart of the frontier. The plains test the officers' judgment and the loyalty of the men.
The Llano Estacado is one of the largest mesas in North America, long dominated by the Comanche and Kiowa. Spanish explorer Coronado crossed it in 1541.
The region is mostly farmland and ranchland around Lubbock. Palo Duro Canyon and Caprock Canyons State Park preserve the escarpment landscape.
Visit: Caprock Canyons State Park (park)
Northern Texas border — Comanche territory
The expedition moves through Comanche hunting grounds where the Rangers meet Indian warriors, including the feared Comanche leader Buffalo Hump, who plays a major role in the book. Gus and Call face the ferocity of a people defending their land. The encounters mark their first real taste of frontier warfare.
The Red River formed a boundary of the Comanche heartland, called Comancheria, which dominated the southern plains through the mid-1800s until the Red River War of 1874-75.
The Red River forms the Texas-Oklahoma border, with state parks and Lake Texoma nearby.
Visit: Lake Texoma (park)
West Texas — Desert crossing
As the expedition struggles westward, the Pecos region marks the harshest desert stretch, where water is alkaline and supplies run short. The Rangers' morale falters under Caleb Cobb's leadership, and the desert's cruelty drives the party toward catastrophe. Gus and Call endure while others perish.
The Pecos River was a notorious barrier for travelers, known for its alkaline waters and steep banks. It became part of the Goodnight-Loving Trail in the 1860s.
Pecos is a West Texas oil-country town, home to the West of the Pecos Museum in a former saloon and hotel.
Visit: West of the Pecos Museum (museum)
New Mexico — The 'Dead Man's Walk' desert
The title's grim march takes place across the waterless desert after the Rangers are captured by Mexican forces and forced to walk south as prisoners. Gus and Call survive starvation and thirst while men die along the way. It is the novel's most harrowing ordeal and the crucible of their friendship.
The Jornada del Muerto, Spanish for 'Journey of the Dead Man,' is a 90-mile desert route along the Camino Real in New Mexico that avoided the bends of the Rio Grande. The route was feared for its lack of water.
The region is largely undeveloped and includes Spaceport America and part of the Jornada Experimental Range.
Central New Mexico — River corridor
After the harsh desert crossing, the Rio Grande valley offers the Rangers a glimpse of settled Mexican New Mexico. The prisoners are marched along the river corridor, guarded by Mexican soldiers who view the Texans as invaders. The contrast of green river land and the earlier desert underlines their fragile survival.
Socorro was a Spanish colonial settlement on the Camino Real, named for aid given to Spanish expeditions by the Piro Pueblo people in 1598.
Socorro is a small city and home to New Mexico Tech. The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge nearby is a popular birding destination.
Visit: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (park)
Plaza — The objective of Cobb's scheme
Santa Fe is the prize Caleb Cobb hoped to seize from the Mexicans, imagining easy riches and conquest. The Texans never take the city as planned, as the expedition collapses before reaching it in strength. The adobe capital stands as the unreachable goal driving the entire disastrous march.
Santa Fe was founded in 1610 and is the oldest state capital in the United States. The 1841 Texan Santa Fe Expedition ended in surrender to New Mexican governor Manuel Armijo.
The historic Plaza and Palace of the Governors anchor a well-preserved downtown that is a major arts and tourism destination.
Visit: Palace of the Governors (museum)
Pecos River, New Mexico — Surrender and capture
The exhausted Texans are intercepted by New Mexican troops and forced to surrender, ending Cobb's dream of conquest. Gus and Call are taken prisoner and begin the long forced march south. The capture marks the turn from adventure to survival.
San Miguel del Vado was a Mexican-era land grant village on the Santa Fe Trail, where Texan Santa Fe Expedition members were held after surrendering in 1841.
A quiet village with a historic adobe church, it is part of the Santa Fe Trail's historic corridor.
Rio Grande — End of the prisoners' march
The prisoners' trek south ends in the Mexican settlements around El Paso del Norte, a significant garrison and trading town on the Rio Grande. The survivors, Gus and Call among them, are held under Mexican authority after the brutal desert march. It is the end point of the physical ordeal, though not of the Rangers' troubles.
El Paso del Norte, now Ciudad Juárez, was a key stop on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. The Texan Santa Fe prisoners were marched through it in 1841-42 on their way to Mexico City.
El Paso, Texas, lies across the river from Ciudad Juárez. The El Paso Mission Trail preserves some of the oldest missions in Texas.
Visit: Ysleta Mission (historic site)
More by Larry McMurtry: Streets of Laredo locations map · Lonesome Dove locations map · All Larry McMurtry books
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