Site of Fort Elliott
Mobeetie, Wheeler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established June 5, 1875. One of the last forts established in Texas for purpose of clearing the region of Indians. Around it Mobeetie, rendezvous of buffalo hunters and traders, grew up. The post was abandoned in 1889. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Fort Elliott marks the closing military chapter of the Indian Wars on the southern plains and the violent transition from Comanche and Kiowa homeland to open cattle country.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Elliott Flagpole
Mobeetie, TX
When Fort Elliott was established in 1875 to secure the Texas Panhandle, teamster-merchant J. J. Long was hired to supply its flagpole. He cut two great cedar trees in the breaks near Antelope Hills, thirty miles away, hauled them by wagon, and fashioned this fifty-foot pole. After the fort closed in 1890 Long bought the pole for his store, and it later stood at the Mobeetie school for two decades before being raised again here in 1949.
Battle of North Fork of Red River
Lefors, TX
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.
Gen. Nelson Miles Expedition (Headquarters Dugout)
Canadian, TX
In the winter of 1874–75, the U.S. Army swept the Texas Panhandle in the campaign now known as the Red River War, and General Nelson Miles ran part of it from a dugout post near here. His columns fought eight engagements that season and, in November 1874, recovered two of the captive German sisters, Addie and Julia, with their older sisters freed the following February. From this rough headquarters Miles nominated soldiers for the Medal of Honor, among them the celebrated scout Billy Dixon, before Fort Elliott rose in 1875 to carry on the work.
Rescue of Two White Girls by Lt. Frank Baldwin
Pampa, TX
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.