mi 
The American Geologist. 
August, 1893 
bo unit the Commanchea on the plains, somewhere between 
the Tucunicari, the Llano Estacado, and the great gypsum and 
salt basin near the great bend of the ( lanadian river, called by 
NO £T^TACA DO 
Fir.. 2. 
the Commanches GrOO-al-pah. They used to go with their 
rather primitive two-wheel carts, drawn hj oxen, and made 
wholly of woods, with plain wheels, without any iron what- 
ever, not even nails. The road made by these carts started from 
Arto-Chico, or the Pelos-Pueblo, and passed through Laguna 
Colorada, Plaza larga, Cerro Tucumcari and Llano Estacado. 
That road existed during the whole of the eighteenth century 
and probably even before. All the names of localities along 
that road are Spanish, except Tucumcari, a Commanche name, 
meaning a very high isolated mound or mountain. 
1839-45. — The first man who put the name Tucumcari in 
print, is Josiah Gregg, in his excellent work : Commerce of 
the Prairies, 1845, Vol. II, Chapter in — a new route revealed, in 
order to evade the difficull pass of the Angosturas or Narrows 
of the Canadian river. Gregg calling some isolated moun- 
tains west of the Angosturas, Cerro de Tucumcari; and he 
spoke also of the Tucumcari route; but he does not give any 
