First Lieutenant Ernest Howard Ruffner, accompanied by a large military escort and civilian scouts, conducted a stadia line survey from Fort Elliott to the canyon now known as the Palo Duro, then on to the river's main head at Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro Creeks. The exploration took some six weeks and included surveys of the area's elevations (calculated from barometric pressures); botany, entomology, and geology; topographic sketches of the smaller steams and side canyons; and an inventory of freshwater sources in the region. Seventeen detailed maps recorded the party's route and the country through which it passed.

Among the surveying party was a civilian draftsman, Adolph Hunnius, who kept a diary detailing the daily activities of the expedition.

In 1985 T. Lindsay Baker edited the diary and report and published them as a special issue of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Review. Baker later found the survey party's ornithological report, written by Charles A. H. McCauley, and published it in 1988 as an article in the same journal.