Long before GPS, highways or state lines could tell travelers where they were, Oklahoma’s Cross Timbers served as a landmark that was difficult to miss. Stretching in bands from Kansas through Oklahoma and into Texas, the region blended post oak and blackjack oak woodland with open prairie. In this episode of Red Dirt and Round Bales, Dave Deken examines how Native peoples, explorers, traders, soldiers and settlers experienced the landscape, and why travelers sometimes treated the Cross Timbers almost like a line on a map. He also explains how fire, grazing, farming, clearing and modern development changed the balance between grass and trees. Despite centuries of change, portions of the Cross Timbers remain, preserving a landscape that has served Oklahoma as boundary, resource, obstacle and home.