Rodeo Capital & the Sam Bass Gang

Mesquite was born of the railroad and made famous twice over by it. In 1873 a Texas & Pacific engineer platted a depot town here on the prairie east of Dallas, and within five years the rails had drawn the most wanted gang in the state. On a spring night in 1878, Sam Bass and his men held up a T&P train at the Mesquite depot — a botched job that missed a fortune and helped seal the gang's doom. The outlaw streak ran deeper still: a few miles south at vanished Scyene, the girl who would become Belle Starr, the 'Bandit Queen,' went to school and ran a little wild. A century later Mesquite traded train robberies for bucking broncs, and a permanent Saturday-night rodeo grew so famous the Texas Legislature crowned the town the Rodeo Capital of Texas. This driving loop ties the two together — the depot Bass robbed, the road the outlaws rode, the schoolhouse that taught Belle Starr, and the arena that gave Mesquite its lasting name.