• Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to register so that you can join the community and use the numerous features on the site. After registering, don't forget to post up an introduction!

"Quanah Parker" Weekend

Forums New posts
HBarlow

HBarlow

0
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
64
Reaction score
0
Location
Crosby County TX
About two years ago I read a new book just out titled, in part, "Empire of The Summer Moon . . . ." The book is a scholarly history of the Comanche domination of Texas from the 1830s until about 1875 when Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and his troops forced the last of the Comanches onto the reservation at Ft. Sill, OK and opened Texas for expansion by white settlers.

Prominent in the book was Quanah Parker, son of Cynthia Ann Parker, a young white girl who was captured by raiding Comanches in 1836 and later became the teenaged bride of a Comanche chief. Reading about Quanah and COL Mackenzie who fought battles in Blanco Canyon very near where I live now I became interested in Quanah, the last chief of the Comanches.

Yesterday, Saturday morning two other Goldwingers and myself rode from Crosby and Dickens County north to Cache, OK to tour Quanah's home which is deteriorating badly but is still intact at the former Eagle Trading Post Amusement Park at Cache, OK. We toured the house, talked a little history with the owner/tourguide, then spent the night in Lawton, OK.

This morning we visited Ft. Sill and located the burial place of Quanah Parker, his mother Cynthia Ann Parker, and his sister Prairie Flower. Quanah is buried in a position of respect in what was the post cemetery in the late 1800s with a large and impressive grave marker. The marker is engraved with the information that he was buried in the post cemetery by act of congress.

I'm no historian but the life of Quanah Parker is very interesting to me.

Besides the history lesson we had beautiful weather for about a 500 mile round trip and the first weekend motorcycle trip I've been able to take since October.

If anyone is interested in seeing Quanah Parker's Star House I can provide that information.
 
Got pics? :-P

Sounds like an interesting story. I've never heard of it, but I have not really studied a lot of Texas history beyond the heavily slanted stuff they taught us in public schools :wary:
 
No, none of us took photos. We're not good photographers. If anyone is interested there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of excellent photos of Quanah and his long ago home and good information available at google by keying "Quanah Parker" or "Quanah Parker Star House."

Every Texas elementary student once learned about the capture of nine year old Cynthia Ann Parker, her induction into Comanche culture and her son, the great chief of the Comanches, Quanah Parker but may have forgotten now. Elementary school and Texas history was quite a few years ago for me.
 
I did a similar trip last spring after reading (in part) the same book. His grave site is impressive. Spent most of the weekend running around Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Very nice riding. Oh, and we had to eat at Meers! Great burgers!

I will certainly do that trip again.

My latest interest is visiting the grave sits of Oliver Loving and Charlie Goodnight and touring Palo Duro Canyon. This trip will happen in the next month or two.

Safe travels,
TTR

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
 
The Comanches were something else. They were the only tribe to actually fight from horseback, and they were very, very tough. It was the killing of their horses that finally subdued them. I might make that ride some day.
 
I strongly encourage anyone with a basic interest to take the tour of Quanah's Star House. I've done it twice. Each time the house gives me an eerie feeling, a strange sense of being back in the late 1800s - early 1900s when Quanah, his seven wives, and many children lived there. You'll need to make prior arrangements as it's by appointment only. No charge but donations appreciated.

Quanah's original long dining table where he hosted visits by numerous top US Army general officers, Indian chiefs, and senior government officials is still in the house along with the old but deteriorated carpets, and some of the wall paper. History claims that even Teddy Roosevelt dined at Quanah's table but his name was not on the list of diners prepared by one of Quanah's wives or descendents.
 
HB, that was a good book wasn't it! I was stationed at Ft Sill a few times and history buff. There is a lot of stuck to see in that area if you know the locals a little.

They were tough people back then.
 
Yes, it was. A friend just gave me three more titles this morning - two about Quanah and one about a Crosby County cowboy from the same period that I'm going to look for on Amazon.

I also enjoyed wandering around on Ft. Sill looking for the old post cemetery. I had driven past Ft. Sill many times but never been on the base before.

The old historic section is beautiful and makes me think of the soldiers who once lived and trained there.
 
Hi Harvey,

I read the book when it first came out a few years ago. As chief, frequently leading by example, Quanah Parker worked to promote self-sufficiency and self-reliance. To this end, he supported the construction of schools on reservation lands and encouraged Indian youths to learn the white man's ways. Indeed, most of his children were educated, either at reservation schools or off-reservation boarding schools.

As a testament to his successful conversion to white ways, Parker was a close associate of several prominent Texas Panhandle ranchers...counted Theodore Roosevelt as one of his friends, and was frequently interviewed by magazine reporters on a variety of subjects, including political and social issues. He also became a Christian as he managed the important transition to late 19th. century society...something many other tribes and it's respective leaders could not imagine and thus many tribes remained ALIENATED by living exclusively on the reservation.

RB
 
Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped from Fort Parker which has been restored and sits between Groesbeck and Mexia. While searching her family history, my wife discovered that she is a cousin(5 generations back) to Cynthia Ann.She had no idea and I doubt that she even knew the story of the massacre at Ft Parker. She tracked down a direct decendent of one of the Parkers ( He is a bank president in Elkhart) That verified her research and was pleased to see that she had found links to his family that he had been searching for. Neat place to ride.
 
I'm supposedly related to the Parkers. I tried to get the genealogy to confirm. Unfortunately my grandma passed away several years ago and I need some more information to make the lines connect. Close but no cigar.

I want to see this place some day.
 
GIXXERKELLY said:
I'm supposedly related to the Parkers. I tried to get the genealogy to confirm. Unfortunately my grandma passed away several years ago and I need some more information to make the lines connect. Close but no cigar.

I want to see this place some day.
Click to expand...

You really need to look into Ancestory.com. You will be amazed. It's honestly worth it.
 
GIXXERKELLY said:
I'm supposedly related to the Parkers. I tried to get the genealogy to confirm. Unfortunately my grandma passed away several years ago and I need some more information to make the lines connect. Close but no cigar.

I want to see this place some day.
Click to expand...

send me a name and I'll see if wife can connect it through her research. She's been tracking her family for about 5 years.
 
Cool to see others related to the Parkers. My granddad on my mom's side claimed we were related to Quanah Parker in some way or another as well. I remember him telling us stories about Q.P. when we were little kids.
Interestingly, I also had an uncle on my dad's side who died in the Alamo (John M. Hays).
Dang, am I a legacy or what? :trust: :lol2:
 
Moody Blues said:
You really need to look into Ancestory.com. You will be amazed. It's honestly worth it.
Click to expand...

My wife is on that and has tracked her and my family back to Europe. Both my mom and dads familes have been in the new world since the 1600s. I have traced my fathers family to the 1300s...kinda goes dead there.
 
We have used an Ancestory.com but, I'm hitting a road block just because none of the names I'm seeing are ringing a bell. Wish I would have wrote more of this down when my grand parents were alive. I want to say I'm like one of two people away from confirming the relation.
 
Yeah, the wife has ours back to 1492 back in a England and found my 17th Great Grandfather was Henry VII "aide" as a child growing up, saved him from drowning when he was in his teens, and Knighted him when he became King. Wow. Going to see his grave outside London in June...on my way back from the Isle of Man TT. :) can't wait.
 
Thanks for posting about the "Quanah Parker" ride. I really enjoy a ride that connects the dots of history or geography.

Moody Blues said:
... the wife has ours back to 1492 back in a England and found my 17th Great Grandfather was Henry VII "aide" as a child growing up, saved him from drowning when he was in his teens, and Knighted him when he became King....
Click to expand...

No knights in our family, which by my surname has been traced to James who came to Virginia as an indentured servant in the 1620's, his descendants eventually making their way into the Kentucky frontier in the early 1800's. My grandfather was born in 1905 to sharecroppers in the Ohio River region of Western Kentucky; he joined the Calvary to escape the poverty and was a quartermaster out at Fort Bliss in the 1920's.
 
No distinguished ancestry here...bunch of horse thieves and drunk Indians. BUT, if you like to look at the history of the area check out John Graves book called Goodbye to a river. Way more than just a canoe trip down the Brazos.
 
_RG_ said:
No distinguished ancestry here...bunch of horse thieves and drunk Indians. BUT, if you like to look at the history of the area check out John Graves book called Goodbye to a river. Way more than just a canoe trip down the Brazos.
Click to expand...
Howdy RG, not sure if you're aware but John Graves passed away last summer at the age of 92.

http://www.statesman.com/weblogs/the-reader/2013/jul/31/texas-literary-legend-john-graves-dies/

I met Mr. Graves once while staying with my Uncle Gene in Glen Rose back in the 80's. He stopped by one day to visit with his sheepdog named Hup. It was funny, he'd call the dog by slamming the tailgate and calling "Come on Hup, HupHupHup Let's Go Hup, HupHup". :lol2: He was a fun, interesting man, full of wit and had me laughing at funny stories and songs while sitting on the front porch. After he left my uncle explained to me how they became friends.
My uncle's farm was right on the Brazos and one day, years ago, a man came walking up the trail from the river and asked my uncle if he would mind if he camped over night on the river bottom. My uncle said he didn't mind at all and invited him in for a drink. Turns out the man was writing a book while canoeing down the Brazos River, camping along the way with his little dog. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, his name was John Graves. :sun: They quickly became friends and remained friends for many years after.
I was about 12 yrs old at the time and didn't read many books but my uncle showed me his copy of Goodbye to a River and I began reading it. I couldn't finish it before I had to come home but continued reading it the next time I stayed with him. Even as a kid it made an impression on me and gave me a different way of looking at the world around me. I was also very proud to to be able to say that I'd met the man who wrote the words.
My Uncle Gene passed away 20yrs ago. It was a devastating loss to me. He taught me how to hunt, how to trap, how to read sign, how to live off the land. He taught me about nature. You can only imagine how I felt after he died when I found out He'd left ALL of his books to ME! :zen:
Including these two.... :sun:

CIMG2791_zps77a519d0.jpg


CIMG2792_zps074914da.jpg


CIMG2789_zps5d669139.jpg


CIMG2790_zpsb596c3c0.jpg
 
WOW! That is is just about a 10+ on the cool scale. His story in academia is pretty unique. Very admirable fellow from all accounts. I didn't know he'd passed away. Thanks for sharing the story of time spent with JG and your uncle. :thumb:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top