Boots, Rails & Cattle Country: Justin & Krum

Two neighboring farm-and-rail towns make one wide country loop. Justin, anchored by Justin Boots heritage and a deep rodeo streak, and Krum, a Santa Fe wheat-town a dozen miles north, both owe their existence to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway and the rich prairie soil around them — and neither fields quite enough strong stops to stand alone, so they ride together here. The drive ties their founding markers to the pioneer cemeteries that came before the depots: the Jackson community that became Krum, and the creek junctions near Justin where John B. Denton was first buried and French socialist colonists briefly tried to build a utopia. Plan on real distance between stops and a couple of rural cemeteries. End in downtown Justin, boot-and-rodeo country to its core.