Historical Marker

P.P. Ackley and the Texas Chisholm Trail

Historical marker location:

Hooks Avenue (US Business 83) and South 8th Street, Donna, Texas

( Donna City Square Park)

Illinois native Peter Preston Ackley (1858-1940) moved to Texas as a boy. He went on several trail drives in 1870s and 1880s, bringing from cattle Texas, Nebraska and Canada to Kansas railheads. Starting in the 1920s, Ackley worked to have the Chisholm Trail recognized as a National Highway. In the 1930s he formed the Texas Longhorn Chisholm Trail Association and placed dozens of metal and granite markers along historic cattle trails in several states, Canada and Mexico. Ackley wintered in Donna and placed a trail marker here; a sign outside his house read "End of the Chisholm Trail." His efforts helped to document the era of the cattle drives in the American West.