The Shawnee Cattle Trai through Western Ellis County Marker

Driving through Italy, TX a week ago I decided to take a scenic route towards 5 points.  As I descended L R Campbell rd (Named for Lee Robert Campbell) to the Chambers Creek bottom I spotted a Historical Marker on the right.  "That was never there before!", I said to myself.  Its behind a wire fence at the entrance to Pecan Springs Ranch .  The ranch's website provides a lot of history of the Shawnee Cattle trail and the ancestry of the land in the Sims family.  A beautiful area if not the most beautiful area in Ellis County. The Shawnee Cattle Trail was the original cattle trail north.  I'm not sure if the trail actually follows the road but I do know the cattle drives varied because they had to find land that hadn't been grazed before and it was thought Western Ellis County was chosen because of the prairie lands and the many creeks and springs. I know that Buena Vista Road that connects Waxahachie to Maypearl was the basic path of a connector trail between the main cattle trails. Lots of interesting hard working cowpokes came through here.