Site of McLaurin Massacre
Leakey, Real County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site Of McLaurin Massacre (Last Indian Raid in Frio Canyon) On April 19, 1881, Catherine "Kate" Ringer McLaurin (sometimes McLauren) was with her three small children and 14-year-old Allen Lease in the garden when a band of Lipan Apaches started to plunder her home. Lease, thinking there were pigs in the house, went to investigate the noise and was shot and killed. Catherine was also shot, dying hours later, but her children were unharmed. Maud, age 6, went for help because her father, John McLaurin, was away. Neighbors gave chase for 70 miles before soldiers from Fort Clark took command. Soldiers trailed the party into Mexico, reportedly killing all but two. (1968, 2004)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On April 19, 1881, a band of Lipan Apaches raided the McLaurin homestead in Frio Canyon while John McLaurin was away. In the violence, teenager Allen Lease and Catherine "Kate" McLaurin were shot and killed, though her three small children survived unharmed — six-year-old Maud running for help. Neighbors and soldiers from Fort Clark trailed the raiders 70 miles and into Mexico, in what is remembered as the last Indian raid in the canyon.
Why it matters
This site marks the violent closing chapter of the frontier conflict between settlers and Native peoples in the Texas Hill Country.
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Related people
- · Catherine "Kate" Ringer McLaurin
- · Allen Lease
- · John McLaurin
Related events
- · McLaurin Massacre (1881)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Leakey
Leakey, TX
John Leakey left Tennessee for Texas in 1847 and pushed steadily westward into the rugged Frio Canyon, where he built a cypress-shingle business under the constant threat of raids during the frontier's most dangerous years. He hauled supplies for the Confederacy, then returned to run a sawmill, ranch, and even a school, and in 1883 the town that bears his name was laid out on land he donated. His story braids together settlement, industry, and the hard realities of the contested Hill Country frontier.
Real County
Leakey, TX
Set on the rolling, canyon-cut Edwards Plateau along the Frio River, Real County long resisted Anglo settlement because of raids by the Comanche, Apache, and Lipan Apache, which held back newcomers until after 1881. The Spanish had earlier founded Mission San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz nearby in 1762. The county itself was created and organized in 1913 from parts of Edwards, Kerr, and Bandera counties and named for businessman and state senator Julius Real, with Leakey — founded by pioneer John Leakey — as its seat.
Leakey Cemetery
Leakey, TX
Dating to at least 1881 and once known as the Floral Cemetery, this burial ground sits on land John and Nancy Leakey sold for a dollar and a cemetery plot. Its oldest documented graves are those of Sara Catherine McLaurin and fifteen-year-old Allen Lease, killed in April 1881 in what is remembered as the last Indian raid in the Frio Canyon area. Among more than 900 burials lie pioneers, Civil War veteran John Colter Brice, elected officials, and countless children lost to measles, typhoid, diphtheria, and influenza.
Catherine McLauren
Leakey, TX
On April 19, 1881, a Lipan Apache band raided the Frio Canyon home of 'Kate' McLauren while she was there with her three small children and a neighbor boy. Shot during the attack, she still managed to send her six-year-old daughter for help before dying that night after her husband's return. When a cemetery was established at Leakey, she and the boy killed in the raid were among its first burials, in what is remembered as the last Indian raid in the canyon.