The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon
Canyon, Randall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
September 28, 1874 One of the most significant battles of 1874-75 Indian campaign; columns of troops converging from five directions harassed Indians on the Panhandle Plains for over six months. The 4th Cavalry under Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, moving north from Fort Concho, tracked a large band of Indians to their secret canyon camp. Moving silently at dawn down a perilous path on the south rim, the first troops reached the floor of the canyon before the aroused camp fled. Some of the warriors took up positions on the canyon walls from which they fired on the troops, seeking to give their families time to escape. Realizing his tactical disadvantage, Mackenzie ordered the Indian camp and supplies burned and withdrew, taking along 1,400 captured horses (1,000 of which he later destroyed). The cavalry suffered no causalities in the fight and only four Indian dead were counted. Having lost half their horses as well as all their supplies and shelter, the Indians drifted back to their reservations at Fort Sill and Fort Reno. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
At dawn on September 28, 1874, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie's 4th Cavalry descended a treacherous path into Palo Duro Canyon and surprised a large Native encampment sheltering there. Though the warriors fought from the canyon walls to cover their families' escape, Mackenzie burned the camp and supplies and captured some 1,400 horses — destroying a thousand of them — leaving the tribes without shelter or mounts and forcing their return to the reservations.
Why it matters
The battle effectively ended the free life of the Southern Plains tribes on the Texas Panhandle, a decisive and sobering turning point in the Red River War and the closing of the frontier.
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Related people
- · Ranald S. Mackenzie
Related events
- · Red River War
- · 1874–75 Indian campaign
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Col. John I. Gregg 1872 Battle Site
Canyon, TX
After the Civil War, waves of settlers pushed west onto the Great Plains and clashed with the Native nations who lived there, prompting Army campaigns against the Southern Plains tribes. In 1872 Colonel John I. Gregg led Eighth Cavalry troops from New Mexico into West Texas hunting raiders, and on August 16 they skirmished with Kiowas near this spot. That fight, with the later Red River War of 1874-75, drove the subjugation of the Plains tribes and their confinement to reservations.
Two Miles North of Here
Tulia, TX
After U.S. cavalry under Mackenzie routed Southern Plains tribes at Palo Duro Canyon in September 1874, the troops slaughtered roughly 1,450 captured horses two miles north of this marker. Destroying the herd left the surviving warriors afoot, forcing them back onto their reservations.
The Battle of Red River
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In 1874 the U.S. Army launched a sweeping campaign to force the Southern Plains tribes onto reservations, and it opened here with a grinding five-hour running fight. Colonel Nelson Miles's column of 744 men pursued Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa bands across the Panhandle, in a clash that saw the Army's first use of the Gatling gun west of the Mississippi. Though warriors slipped away, the destruction of their villages helped end free Native life on the southern plains.
Sam Wood Cabin
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Sam Wood raised this cabin in 1887 at Hog Town, now a Panhandle ghost town. A Union Civil War veteran, buffalo hunter, and Indian scout, Wood was father of the bride in the first marriage recorded in the Panhandle, held at Fort Elliott in 1877, and his cabin once sheltered six families during an Indian scare. Moved and restored in 1954, it survives as a rare relic of frontier life on the high plains.