Plains Trail Region

(940) 663-2222

Website

Quanah was established in the 1880s as a railroad stop and named for Comanche chief Quanah Parker, son of Peta Nocona and kidnapped Anglo settler Cynthia Ann Parker. The post office captures the town’s birth in a 1938 mural by noted artist Jerry Bywaters, featuring Chief Quanah and a frontiersman against a panoramic background that tells, left to right, the history of the area from the time when buffalo roamed the plains to 1938, the year of the painting. Another place of interest is the public library, a design by Karl Komatsu of the noted architectural firm Komatsu Architecture.The city honors Quanah Parker with a granite monument beside the Beaux Arts 1908 Hardeman County Courthouse.

Chief Quanah’s story and that of Anglo pioneers come alive at the Hardeman County Historical Jail Museum, located in an 1890 stone jail. Learn more history nearby in the 1908 Spanish Colonial Revival-style Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway Depot Museum. It’s across the street from a giant arrow sculpture protruding from a park, marking Quanah as a site on the Plains Trail Region’s Quanah Parker Trail.

The Quanah Parker story continues 13 miles south at Copper Breaks State Park. Along with camping, hiking, boating, and wildlife viewing, the park offers exhibits on the 1860 recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker by Texas Rangers near here. Drive east of Quanah on US 287 to view four rounded hills that remain a sacred Comanche site called Medicine Mounds. Make a side trip to the ghost town of Medicine Mound and see photos of past glory preserved in an aging general store, now the Downtown Medicine Mound Museum.