TAKE A STAND WITH AN ARROW TO HONOR QUANAH PARKER

WHAT: Quanah Parker Day in the Texas Plains Trail Region
WHEN: Sat., Sept 14, 2024
WHERE: Communities with Quanah Parker Trail giant arrow markers

TEXAS PLAINS TRAIL REGION — Quanah Parker Trail arrows will stand a little taller on Saturday, Sept. 14 - Quanah Parker Day in Texas. The statewide observance, which Texas Governor Greg Abbott decreed for the second Saturday of each September, commemorates the life of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker. In the Texas Plains Trail Region, one of the ten regions designated as part of the Texas Heritage Trails Program of the Texas Historical Commission, volunteer leaders launched a Quanah Parker Trail project in 2010, which has organized some regional events and avenues for participating in the statewide recognition.

About the Quanah Parker Trail
Every Texas student passing through 4th and 7th grade by now has learned the story of Quanah Parker; his mother Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped as a child and raised among the Comanches; and their lives as Texas Indians. The Comanches were called “Lords of the Southern Plains” owing to their superb horsemanship and prowess in hunting bison from horseback.

In the Texas Plains Trail Region (TPTR), we encourage you to honor Quanah Parker Day by paying a visit to a nearby steel arrow sculpture that marks a county’s inclusion on the Quanah Parker Trail (QPT). Take a stand with Quanah Parker and the arrow. Share your photos with us on social media and be sure to tell your family and friends about your adventure.

The QPT placed within the TPTR is conceptual in nature. Counties of the TPTR installed 88 steel arrows created by sculptor welder Charles A. Smith (1943–2018), to commemorate their inclusion in the Comanchería, the territorial range of the Comanches in the 19th century. The trail is named for Quanah Parker, as he is considered as the most renowned Indian leader who frequented this area.

The heart of the story is this: Every county’s land within TPTR was once part of the territory of the Comanches, known as the Comanchería.

What local communities can do to honor Quanah’s legacy
The site where QPT Arrows are installed can be cleared of tall growth that may obscure them from view. Weathered arrows can be touched up with paint made for metal tractors and available at local farm and feed stores, or hardware stores. Streamers of red, yellow and blue, the colors of the shield for the logo of the Comanche Nation, can be tied onto the arrows to flutter in the wind and draw the attention of travelers to the history of the region.

More about Quanah Parker and the Comanches
And the other part of the story this: At one time or another, Quanah crossed the lands where we live now. As a warrior, Quanah rode with the Kwahada division of the Comanche tribe. The Kwahada made their home on the southern High Plains of the Llano Estacado and as well traversed the Rolling Plains of Texas in the late 19th century. Under Quanah’s leadership, the Kwahada remained the last Comanche holdouts who resisted the U.S. military's effort to force all Indians to move onto reservations.

After the Comanches moved to the reservation in Indian Territory by the end of 1875, Quanah continued as a leader, helping them adjust to a different way of life. He was appointed as a Comanche chief by Indian agents of the federal government. Quanah coordinated cultural and political activities felt to be necessary to aid the Comanche people in adapting to the challenges of modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this capacity, he continued to travel throughout our region, by mule-drawn wagon, touring car, and train. He became a celebrity, and as a much sought-after representative of frontier history, in the TPTR alone he attended a funeral in Dalhart, addressed a crowd in Matador, attended a celebration in the town of Quanah named for him, and visited ranchers Samuel Burk Burnett in Guthrie and Charles Goodnight near Claude.

For more information
• About the Quanah Parker Trail in the TPTR, visit: www.quanahparkertrail.com

Biographies of Quanah
• Bill Neeley, “The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker” (J. Wiley, 1996).

• William T. Hagan, “Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief” (University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

History about his mother, Cynthia Ann Parker
• Paul Carlson and Tom Crum, “Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker” (Texas Tech University Press, 2010).
• Jack K. Selden, “Return: The Parker Story” (Clacton Press, 2006).

History of the Comanches
• Pekka Hämäläinen, “The Comanche Empire” (Yale University Press, 2009).
• Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, “Comanches, Lords of the South Plains”(University of Oklahoma Press, 1952).