Tenth Cavalry Creek
Burkburnett, Wichita County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First called Getty's Creek, this stream was renamed by cowboys and settlers who found near its mouth, on Red River, remains of a military outpost garrisoned by the U.S. Tenth Cavalry from 1873 to 1875. Most of the Negro soldiers and white officers stationed there had previously served in the Federal army during the Civil War (1861-1865) and at Fort Sill, in Indian Territory. This staked timber outpost was attacked by Indians; legend says that all the officers, men and horses killed in the battle were buried in a common grave somewhere along this creek.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Cowboys and settlers renamed this stream when they found, near where it meets the Red River, the ruins of a military post held by the U.S. Tenth Cavalry from 1873 to 1875. Its Black troopers and white officers — Buffalo Soldiers, many of them Civil War veterans who had also served at Fort Sill — guarded the frontier during the Indian Wars. Legend holds that after an Indian attack on the timber outpost, the men and horses lost in the fighting were buried together in a single grave somewhere along the creek.
Why it matters
The Buffalo Soldiers of the Tenth Cavalry were African American men who helped patrol the western frontier just years after the Civil War, a striking and complicated chapter in both Black history and the conflict between the United States and Native nations.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years after the Civil War, the Red River country along the Texas-Indian Territory border was a contested frontier. The U.S. Army was trying to assert federal control over the southern plains. Comanche and Kiowa people, whose homelands and hunting grounds covered this region, were resisting the reservation system and the flood of settlers and buffalo hunters moving onto their land.
The Army built forts and smaller outposts along this line, and many were garrisoned by the new Black regiments created after the war. The Tenth Cavalry was one of them. Its troopers became known as Buffalo Soldiers, and much of their service was on the southern plains, including at Fort Sill in Indian Territory, just north of the Red River.
The mid-1870s were a turning point. Fighting on the southern plains came to a head in the Red River War of 1874 to 1875, and within a few years the free-roaming life of the southern Plains tribes was largely over. The small outpost remembered here was manned during exactly those years, from 1873 to 1875.
People & events
The creek did not always carry this name. It was first called Getty's Creek. Later, cowboys and settlers moving into the area came across the remains of a military post near where the creek runs into the Red River. The outpost had been built of staked timber, and the Tenth Cavalry had garrisoned it from 1873 to 1875. The newcomers named the stream after the soldiers who had been there before them.
Those soldiers were Black enlisted men serving under white officers, which was the pattern in the Black regiments of that time. According to the marker, most of them had already served in the Federal army during the Civil War and later at Fort Sill. Many had fought to save the Union and end slavery, then took up the hard, lonely work of frontier duty only a few years later.
The outpost was attacked by Indians. What happened next is where history turns into legend. According to local tradition, the officers, men, and horses killed in the fight were buried together in one common grave somewhere along the creek. Nobody has pinned down where that grave is, or confirmed every detail of the story, and it should be treated as legend. Still, the creek's name shows how strongly the soldiers' presence stayed in local memory.
Its place in the American story
The Buffalo Soldiers hold a complicated place in American history, and this creek holds all of it. These were Black men, many of them born into slavery, who served their country in uniform only a few years after emancipation. They faced discrimination in the Army and in the frontier communities they protected, and they still built a record of hard, steady service.
They were also carrying out a federal policy that forced Native nations off their land and onto reservations. The people who attacked this outpost were defending homelands and a way of life that was being taken from them. The honest version of this story keeps both truths in view: Black soldiers claiming a place in the nation, and Native peoples losing theirs.
Place names are one of the ways a country remembers. Settlers who never met these troopers chose to name a creek after their regiment, and that simple act kept a trace of the Buffalo Soldiers on the Texas map long after the timber outpost had rotted away.
If you visit
The marker is near Burkburnett in Wichita County, on the Texas side of the Red River, close to the Oklahoma line. This is wide-open country, and as you look out over it, it is easy to imagine how isolated a small timber outpost here would have felt in the 1870s.
Nothing survives of the post above ground, and the legendary grave has never been located, so the landscape itself is what you are here to see. Think about the creek winding toward the Red River, and about the troopers who would have watched over this crossing. The marker's language reflects the time it was written; the story it tells is about the men of the Tenth Cavalry.
This stop pairs naturally with Fort Sill, just across the river in Oklahoma, where these same soldiers served. Together they make a strong day for anyone following the history of the Buffalo Soldiers or the last years of the southern plains frontier. Respect private property along the creek, and stay on public roads.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Felix L. Lindsey
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