Parsons' Cavalry & the Blackland Frontier

Red Oak sits in the rich blackland prairie of northern Ellis County, but its most famous marker reaches back to the Civil War and a cavalry brigade that rode out of this country to wide renown. Parsons' Cavalry, organized nearby in 1861, became one of the best-known Confederate units from Texas, scouting and fighting across Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Indian Territory. This driving loop pairs that military history with the pioneer foundations of the county itself: the marker for Ellis County's creation, a fine pioneer farmhouse built by a local carpenter, and the old community cemetery where generations of settlers and veterans rest. It's a short tour about a frontier county that sent its young men to war and then went on building farms, homes, and burying grounds across the prairie. Four solid stops trace that blend of the blackland frontier and its most storied brigade.