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[ The story of the way in which this name became corrupted into "Picketwire," by which it is generally known in New Mexico, is this: When Spain owned all Mexico and Florida, as the vast region of the Mississippi valley was called, long before the United States had an existence as a separate government, the commanding officer at Santa Fe received an order to open communication with the country of Florida. For this purpose an infantry regiment was selected. It left Santa Fe rather late in the season, and wintered at a point on the Old Trail now known as Trinidad. In the spring, the colonel, leaving all camp-followers behind him, both men and women, marched down the stream, which flows for many miles through a magnificent canyon. Not one of the regiment returned or was ever heard of. When all hope had departed from the wives, children, and friends left behind at Trinidad, information was sent to Santa Fe, and a wail went up through the land. The priests and people then called this stream "El Rio de las Animas Perditas" ("The river of lost souls"). Years after, when the Spanish power was weakened, and French trappers came into the country under the auspices of the great fur companies, they adopted a more concise name; they called the river "Le Purgatoire." Then came the Great American Bull-Whacker. Utterly unable to twist his tongue into any such Frenchified expression, he called the stream with its sad story "Picketwire," and by that name it is known to all frontiersmen, trappers, and the settlers along its banks.]
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[ The ranch is now in charge of Mr. Harry Whigham, an English gentleman, who keeps up the old hospitality of the famous place.]
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[ "River of Souls." The stream is also called Le Purgatoire, corrupted by the Americans into Picketwire.]
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[ Pawnee Rock is no longer conspicuous. Its material has been torn away by both the railroad and the settlers in the vicinity, to build foundations for water-tanks, in the one instance, and for the construction of their houses, barns, and sheds, in the other. Nothing remains of the once famous landmark; its site is occupied as a cattle corral by the owner of the claim in which it is included.]
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[ The crossing of the Old Santa Fe Trail at Pawnee Fork is now within the corporate limits of the pretty little town of Larned, the county-seat of Pawnee County. The tourist from his car-window may look right down upon one of the worst places for Indians that there was in those days of the commerce of the prairies, as the road crosses the stream at the exact spot where the Trail crossed it.]