Buffalo Gap cuts 400 feet through the Callahan Divide

Buffalo Gap is more than the name of a town. The gap itself is a low opening through the Callahan Divide, about 400 feet below the nearby hilltops. Bison once wore a clear trail through that opening, and the settlement later took its name from the landform.

The divide runs for 26 miles through Taylor and Callahan counties. It begins near Cedar Creek in central Taylor County, passes through Buffalo Gap, and continues toward Lytle Gap near Dudley. Its hills separate the Brazos River watershed from the Colorado River watershed. Elevations along the divide range from 1,898 feet at Buffalo Gap to 2,411 feet near its western end.

That lower crossing helped make Buffalo Gap a natural route. Elm Creek gave bison a watering place, and today's Farm Road 89 follows the old Center Line Trail surveyed in 1874. Hunters camped there in the 1860s and 1870s, and roads later forked through the opening toward Fort Phantom Hill, Pecos County, and Tom Green County. The geography shaped what followed; the town, roads, and county-seat story gathered around it.