In May, 1876, a party of army engineers, teamsters, and 
a civilian draftsman with a military escort departed from 
Fort Elliott in the Texas Panhandle to explore the headwaters 
of the Red River. This compilation of their reports has been 
available only to a limited audience, and this revised version 
includes the survey party's ornithological report and a new
introduction, which focuses on the reports as environmental 
history. 


First Lieutenant Ernest Howard Ruffner,  accompanied by a large
military escort and civilian scouts, conducted a stadia line 
survey from Fort Elliott to the canyon now known as the Palo Duro, 
then on to the river's main head at Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro 
Creeks.  The exploration took some six weeks and included surveys 
of the area's elevations (calculated from barometric pressures);
botany, entomology, and geology; topographic sketches of the 
smaller streams and side canyons; and an inventory of freshwater
sources in the region. Seventeen detailed maps recorded the 
party's route and the country through which it passed.


Among the surveying party was a civilian draftsman, Adolph Hunnius, 
who kept a diary detailing the daily activities of the expedition.  

    
In 1985 T. Lindsay Baker edited the diary and report and published 
them as a special issue of the Panhandle-Plains Historical
Review. Baker later found the survey party's ornithological 
report, written by Charles A. H. McCauley, and published it in 
1988 as an article in the same journal.


"While the official report presents . . . historical and scientific
data on the Panhandle and its environment before it was altered by 
the introduction of domestic cattle, Hunnius's diary provides us 
with an intimate glimpse into life on an army engineers' topographic
survey expedition . . ."-T. Lindsay Baker 




T. LINDSAY BAKER is a well-known historian of Texas and the 
West now serving as director of the Texas Heritage Museum at Hill
Junior College in Hillsboro. He has published numerous books and
articles, including Till Freedom Cried Out (edited, with 
Julie Baker), and The First Polish Americans.

Number Thirteen: Environmental History Series