DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker at Comanche Gap tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, there's a break in the mountain chain between the Lampasas River and Nolan Creek — a natural corridor, a gap in the hills — and if that gap could talk, it would have some things to say. It sits along the route to one of the oldest Indian trails in the entire Southwest.
Comanche Gap, they call it, and the name carries weight. This was the escape point. The last place the Comanches passed through after their final raid in Bell County.
And what happened in the days leading up to that flight through the gap — that's the part you don't forget. March fourteenth through the sixteenth, 1859. Over those three days, the Indians killed four settlers.
Among the dead were John and Jane Riggs. Two of their daughters — Rhoda and Margaret — were captured and taken. Taken, and carried toward that gap.
But then something shifted. As a posse closed in behind them, the Comanches abandoned the girls right there at the gap. Left them in that break in the mountains and fled through.
You can imagine what it meant for those two daughters — the terror of the days before, and then suddenly the sound of their captors vanishing into the hills. Public feeling after the raid ran deep and it ran hard. What followed was a campaign against the Comanches, led by Major Earl Van Dorn, commanding U.S.
Cavalry. The gap had witnessed the end of something — the last raid in Bell County — and the beginning of something else entirely. Comanche Gap.
A break in the mountains. A trail older than memory. And for a few desperate days in March of 1859, the place where history held its breath.
What the marker says
Break in mountain chain from Lampasas River to Nolan Creek. Route to one of oldest Indian trails in Southwest, and escape point for Comanches after last raid in Bell County. On March 14-16, 1859, the Indians killed four settlers, including John and Jane Riggs. They captured Rhoda and Margaret, daughters of the Riggses, but abandoned them here at the gap as they fled from a posse. Public feeling after this raid led to a campaign against the Comanches, led by Maj. Earl Van Dorn, commanding U.S. Cavalry. (1967)