Cedar Lake
Loop, Gaines County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Or Laguna Sabinas. Largest Alkali Lake on Plains; old Indian camp and burial site; birthplace of Quanah Parker. A skirmish between Indians and United States Cavalry under command of Lieutenant John L. Bullis took place here in October, 1875. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Known also as Laguna Sabinas, this largest of the plains' alkali lakes was long an Indian camp and burial ground, and by tradition the birthplace of the great Comanche leader Quanah Parker. In October 1875 it was the scene of a skirmish between Native fighters and U.S. Cavalry under Lieutenant John L. Bullis, one of the closing clashes as the Comanche were driven from the Llano Estacado. Water, refuge, and memory converged at this remote West Texas lake.
Why it matters
Cedar Lake ties the homeland of the Comanche and their legendary leader Quanah Parker to the final military campaigns that ended free life on the Southern Plains.
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Related people
- · Quanah Parker
- · John L. Bullis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Route of Nolan Expedition
Meadow, TX
In July 1877, Captain Nicholas Nolan led some sixty Buffalo Soldiers of Company A, 10th U.S. Cavalry—joined by 22 buffalo hunters who called themselves 'The Forlorn Hope'—onto the parched Llano Estacado in pursuit of Comanche raiders. Eluded by their quarry and finding the water holes dry, the men went 86 hours without water, surviving by drinking the blood and urine of their horses before staggering back to a supply base. All but four soldiers lived through the ordeal.
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Wilson, TX
On December 4, 1874, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and two companies of the U.S. 4th Cavalry were caught by a brutal snowstorm at this spot on the Llano Estacado. With no wood, water, or grass, the troopers spent what they called the most miserable night of their Southwestern service, and several horses froze to death. Mackenzie was scouting for scattered bands during the closing weeks of the 1874 campaign to force the Southern Plains tribes onto reservations.
General Ranald Slidell Mackenzie
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A New York-born officer who rose to major general in the Civil War, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie took command of the 4th Cavalry in 1871 and led it in a series of campaigns across the Llano Estacado against the Comanches, Kiowas, and Southern Cheyennes. His surprise attack on villages in Palo Duro Canyon on September 28, 1874—where his troops captured and destroyed some 1,424 horses—left the Southern Plains tribes without the means to resist. Their forced move onto reservations opened West Texas to white settlement.
Dawson County
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Dawson County honors Nicholas Mosby Dawson, a Texas patriot who fought at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 and later fell in the 1842 clash known as Dawson's Massacre during the turbulent years of the Republic of Texas. The county was created in 1858, recreated in 1876 from Bexar Territory, and finally organized in 1905, with Lamesa as its seat. Its name carries the memory of the sacrifices that won and defended Texas independence.