Rescue of Two White Girls by Lt. Frank Baldwin
Pampa, Gray County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Ten miles southwest of here Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin commanding two companies of United States troops attacked a large band of Cheyenne Indians and rescued two white girl captives, November 8, 1874.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On November 8, 1874, during the Red River War against the Southern Plains tribes, Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led two companies of U.S. troops in an attack on a large Cheyenne band about ten miles southwest of here, freeing two young girls held captive. The clash came amid the army's final campaign to force the Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa onto reservations and open the Texas Panhandle to settlement.
Why it matters
The Red River War broke the last organized resistance of the Southern Plains nations and marked the violent close of the free-ranging buffalo culture on the southern plains.
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Related people
- · Frank D. Baldwin
Related events
- · Red River War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Big Springs
Lefors, TX
For generations, the springs near this spot were a rare oasis on the Texas Panhandle plains, drawing Native peoples and, later, U.S. military expeditions. Captain Randolph B. Marcy camped here in 1852 while searching for the headwaters of the Red River, and the springs figured in the campaigns of Ranald S. MacKenzie and Nelson Miles. Archeology has confirmed that an 1874 clash between troops under Lt. Frank Baldwin and Cheyenne chief Grey Beard occurred nearby, during the Red River War that ended free Native life on the Southern Plains.
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On September 29, 1872, Colonel Ranald MacKenzie's cavalry and infantry surprised a 262-tepee Comanche village here on the North Fork of the Red River, whose people had refused to be confined to reservations. The troops seized the village in about half an hour, though Chief Mow-Way's warriors fought fiercely from the creek banks — and that night the Comanches slipped back and recaptured their horse herd. The lesson MacKenzie drew shaped his decisive 1874 campaign against the Southern Plains tribes.
Indian Battlefield
Pampa, TX
On November 8, 1874, at the height of the Red River War on the Texas Panhandle, Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led two companies of U.S. troops in an attack on a large Native encampment near this spot, freeing two young white girls held captive. The clash was one of many in the Army's campaign to force the Southern Plains nations onto reservations. Baldwin's actions here later earned him lasting recognition.
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Established in June 1875, Fort Elliott was among the last military posts built in Texas as the U.S. Army sought to force Indigenous peoples off the Panhandle plains. Around its walls sprang up Mobeetie, a rough rendezvous for buffalo hunters and traders, until the fort was abandoned in 1889 and the frontier era it enforced drew to a close.