Texas Panhandle Frontier

Double Mountain Books

by Frederick W. Rathjen, Elmer Kelton (Introduction)

The Texas Panhandle—its eastern edge descending sharply from the plains into the canyons of Palo Duro, Tule, Quitaque, Casa Blanca, and Yellow House—is as rich in history as it is in natural beauty. Long considered a crossroads of ancient civilizations, the twenty-six northernmost Texas counties lie on the southern reaches of the Great Plains, where numerous dry creek beds and the Canadian River have carved the region appropriately named the High Plains.Through these plains and their canyons, ancient peoples trailed game for the hunt. The Panhandle provided choice grazing lands for bison, and as the region became more familiar to ancient tribes, semipermanent camps marked the landscape. Yet when Coronado's conquistadores crossed the High Plains in search of fabled wealth and found sun-baked adobe instead of gold, they declared the region a wasteland. Likewise, the Republic of Texas found little use for their vast plains land—considering settlement of the frontier far too dangerous. Not until the late-nineteenth century, as the U.S. Army waged war on the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes who lived there, did Panhandle tracts of frontier open to hard-bitten settlers who had to prove themselves as indomitable as they were land hungry.Departing from the premise that the Panhandle frontier "is but a brush stroke on . . . [the] much larger canvas" of previous frontier histories, Rathjen challenges the work of Frederick Jackson Turner and Walter Prescott Webb, and proves that regional is by no means synonymous with provincial.

271 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[Patricrk patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was raised on the southwest corner of this region. I've always told people that it was can be looked as either the part of Texas the white men wanted least or the part the indians fought hardest to keep. It now appears that even the indians didn't want the southwest corner. All the indian fights were well over to the east. My part of Texas was part of the LLanyo Estacado which was only passed over and visited by the Indians as there was no surface water to be counted on. This book should be required reading in the high schools in the area. Very interesting.