The last chief of the free Comanche will be honored by Texas later this month.
Sept. 14 has been declared Quanah Parker Day in Texas, according to a resolution signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Long known as the “lords of the plains” for their horsemanship skills, the Comanches dominated the Southern Plains of the United States, including Scurry County and large portions of Texas.
They were decimated by the U.S. policy of Manifest Destiny and the eradication of the bison, their main food source, by Anglo American hunters during the last half of the 19th century.
Leading the resistance to this expansion was Parker, the son of a Comanche war chief and Cynthia Parker, an Anglo woman who had been captured as a child by the Comanche and who adapted to their way of life.
After his father was killed and his mother captured during a fight with Texas Rangers in 1860, Parker was taken in by the Quahada Comanche of the Llano Estacado region and eventually rose to chief.
For years, Parker’s tribe eluded capture by U.S. soldiers, but were defeated during a raid at Adobe Walls in 1874. A year later, Parker and the Quahada surrendered and settled on the Kiowa-Comanche reservation in Oklahoma, where he lived until his death in 1911.
Scurry County is home to one of 86 22-foot-tall arrows that mark the sites where Parker and the Comanche hunted, traded, lived, traveled and fought. The arrow is located at the entrance of downtown plaza.
Snyder also is home to several Parker cultural assets. Portraits are displayed at the Scurry County Museum and the Scurry County Courthouse and a 19-foot-tall bronze statue of Parker is situated at the entrance of Western Texas College.
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