1870s Cowboy-Indian Fight
Calf Creek vicinity, McCulloch County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Near here in 1874 or 1875, 18 Indians attacked W.B. Brown and two comrades, spooking one horse and capturing bedrolls and grub, but sparing the men, who thankfully escaped. In the 1870s, when they were being driven off the range, capture of supplies meant victory to the Indians. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Near Calf Creek in 1874 or 1875, a band of eighteen Indians ambushed W.B. Brown and two companions, seizing horses, bedrolls, and provisions but letting the men escape with their lives. The episode belongs to the last years of the Southern Plains wars, when Native peoples driven off their hunting ranges struck at settlers' supplies as small victories in a losing struggle. It preserves the texture of frontier conflict in West-Central Texas at the close of the open range.
Why it matters
This small skirmish captures the final, desperate phase of the Plains Indian wars, when the frontier's closing forced Native raids for survival across West Texas.
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Related people
- · W.B. Brown
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
McCulloch County
Brady, TX
Created in 1856 from the vast Bexar territory, McCulloch County honors Ben McCulloch, a Texas hero who fought in the Revolution and in the Indian, Mexican, and Civil Wars. Frontier and Indian dangers slowed settlement so severely that two decades passed before the buffalo were hunted off and ranches took hold, and the county finally organized in 1876 with Brady as its seat. It holds the geographic center of Texas and the site of the 1831 Calf Creek fight, where James Bowie battled a much larger Indian force.
Site of Indian Battle
Brady vicinity, TX
According to this 1936 state marker, on November 21, 1831, a small party led by James and Rezin Bowie fought off a far larger force of Caddo and Lipan warriors near this spot, holding out through a day and a night. The clash took place in Mexican Texas, years before the Texas Revolution, as Anglo-American adventurers pressed into contested Indian and Spanish-Mexican borderlands. The Bowie name later became legend through James Bowie's death at the Alamo.
Onion Creek Indian Fight
Brady vicinity, TX
One night in 1866, five men from Richland Springs tracked stolen horses to an Indian camp near this spot and recovered them in a sharp encounter. A metal arrow struck a Mr. Lafferty and slid halfway around his skull; it was cut out with a pocketknife, and remarkably he survived. The grave of an Indian killed in the fight lies about thirty yards to the north.
Soldier's Waterhole
Brady vicinity, TX
This waterhole on an old military road served U.S. soldiers — including troops under Robert E. Lee — who patrolled for raiders in the 1850s, as well as westbound emigrants camping before the Civil War. The marker records a grim toll: in 1850 a party of eighteen men, women, and children was attacked here, their wagons burned and horses stolen. Long before, the same reliable water had drawn Native peoples to what was noted as an ancient Indian campground.