Caddo Indians in Hunt County
Lone Oak, Hunt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Four hundred years ago, the valleys and tributaries of the Ouachita, Red, Sabine and Neches rivers in what is today northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, and southeast Oklahoma were home to ancestors of the people known today as the Caddo. This extraordinary society of farmers, warriors, potters, priests, and traders played a vital role in the early political and cultural history of the region. Highly successful agriculturalists, the Caddo established themselves through much of the Piney Woods of east Texas by 500 AD. While primarily dependent on agriculture, they supplemented their diet through hunting, fishing, and gathering. Caddo villages were distinctive for their beehive-shaped homes constructed of long-stemmed prairie grasses. The Caddos were known for bow making, pottery production, and many other crafts, and were identifiable by facial and body tattoos and body painting. Most Caddo clothing was made of tanned deerskin. Europeans first encountered the Caddos in 1541, when conquistador Hernando de Soto fought a group in what is now Arkansas. Later encounters accentuated the friendly nature of the Caddos. The word "Texas" is said to originate from the Hasinai confederation of Caddos, who used the work "Tayshas," meaning "allies" or "friends." By AD 800, Caddo groups appear to have moved into the upper and middle Sabine drainage basin. Artifacts found in Hunt County suggest the presence of Caddoan peoples between 800 and 1700 AD; other, earlier peoples also used this region prior to the Caddo. Today, this area and artifacts discovered in it continue to emphasize the legacy of the Caddo peoples. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Long before European settlers arrived, the river valleys of present-day northeast Texas and its neighboring states were home to the ancestors of the Caddo, a sophisticated society of farmers, potters, traders, and priests. Skilled agriculturalists who had spread through the East Texas Piney Woods by around 500 AD, they lived in distinctive beehive-shaped grass homes and were renowned for their pottery and bow making. Artifacts found in Hunt County point to a Caddoan presence here between roughly 800 and 1700 AD. Even the name 'Texas' echoes their word 'Tayshas,' meaning friends or allies.
Why it matters
It honors one of the most influential Indigenous civilizations of the American South and reminds visitors that the state itself carries a Caddo word at its heart.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Hernando de Soto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lake Tawakoni
West Tawakoni, TX
Completed in 1960, Lake Tawakoni is among the largest reservoirs lying wholly within Texas, spreading across some 36,700 acres behind a 5.5-mile Iron Bridge dam on the Sabine River. Built and owned by the Sabine River Authority and financed through a water-supply contract with Dallas, it was engineered to slake the thirst of a growing region. During its creation, prehistoric animal bones and remains of a Tawakoni Indian village were unearthed, recalling the Native people whose name the lake carries.
Cumby
Cumby, TX
Named for a grove of black jack trees atop the highest point in the county—once beside an Indian camping ground and trail—this settlement grew from a frontier crossroads into a thriving trading center. A post office opened in a settler's home in 1848, and by 1860 the town had stores, physicians, blacksmiths, and a log schoolhouse. Renamed in 1896 for a Confederate veteran and legislator, the town later faded as improved highways drew commerce elsewhere.
Site of Burial of Neal Martin
Wills Point, TX
Neal Martin's long life spanned the making of Texas: born in 1777, he came from Kentucky in 1816, hunted buffalo in Van Zandt County, and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in the war for Texas independence. He later rode as a Texas Ranger, campaigned in Indian conflicts, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. He was buried here at the age of 102, his grave later marked by a great-granddaughter.
Dallas-Shreveport Road
Wills Point, TX
This route began as a trail blazed by Caddoan peoples and later followed by French traders. By the mid-1830s it had become a principal road bringing emigrants and cargo into North Texas from the river port of Shreveport, and Van Zandt County's first courthouse rose along it in 1848. Used heavily for Civil War troop movements, the road carried ox teams and settlers into the 1900s.