Mobeetie (formerly known as "Cantonment Sweetwater") was a trading post for hunters and trappers for nearby United States Army outpost Fort Elliott.

Connected to the major cattle-drive town of Dodge City, Kansas, by the Jones-Plummer Trail, Mobeetie was a destination for stagecoach freight and buffalo skinners.

Nearby Fort Elliott, developed to protect the buffalo trade from Indian raiders, stimulated further growth of the town.

King; of the then-4th Cavalry Company H, stationed at Fort Elliot) shot and killed Mollie Brennan (a dancehall girl and former prostitute).

[4][5] Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight said about the town: "I think it was the hardest place I ever saw on the frontier except Cheyenne, Wyoming."

From 1880 to 1883, the notorious Robert Clay Allison ranched with his two brothers, John William and Jeremiah Monroe, 12 miles northeast of town, at the junction of the Washita River and Gageby Creek.

[9] At its peak in 1890, the town had over 400 people, but Mobeetie's boom days ended when Fort Elliott closed that same year.

In 1929, Mobeetie moved two miles when the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway built nearby tracks.

Mobeetie is also known as the birthplace of a member of the 1919 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds, infielder and catcher Morrie Rath.

[10][11] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.6 sq mi (1.6 km2), all land.