DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture the Canadian River country — wild, uncharted, and with no shortage of opinions about who belonged there. It's 1845, and the United States government had decided it was high time somebody went and had a proper look at the Canadian River.
Just before Texas even joined the Union, mind you. They hadn't quite finished the paperwork on statehood yet, and already somebody in Washington was sending men out into this big, empty country with notebooks and compasses. The man they put in charge was a West Point graduate by the name of James W.
Abert — born in 1820, would live all the way to 1897 — and his title was Topographical Engineer, which sounds like a fancy way of saying he got paid to go places nobody had properly drawn on a map yet. He had thirty-three men with him. Thirty-three.
Out here in the Canadian River breaks, that is either a comfort or a very long list of people to worry about, depending on your disposition. Abert and his party spent two or more days in the vicinity of what is now this marker, with campsites sitting about five miles to the southwest and three miles to the northeast. So they weren't just passing through — they were camped, working, watching.
And then the Kiowa came to visit. Now, here is where the story gets a little delicate, and you have to appreciate just how loaded that moment must have been. The Kiowa rode in and made their position plain: they were at war with Texans.
That's what they said. At war with Texans. And there stood Lieutenant Abert with his thirty-three men, right on the edge of what was about to become Texas.
What happened next is the kind of thing that could have gone several different directions. But Abert proved to be an American — not a Texan, an American — and once that was established, the Kiowa made him welcome. Just like that.
The tension that must have hung in the air while that proof was being sorted out… the marker doesn't say how long it took, but I imagine nobody was rushing. When Abert came back out of that country, he brought with him a map of the river and detailed notes on the geography and on the Indians he had encountered. Those notes and that map proved valuable — the marker says so plainly — valuable to Texas and to the nation.
All of that, captured in a single expedition, by one engineer and thirty-three men, on a river that Texas hadn't even officially inherited yet. Some groundwork gets laid before the building even begins.
What the marker says
(Campsites: 5 mi. SW and 3 mi. NE of marker) The United States government had the Canadian River explored in 1845, just before Texas joined the Union. Topographical engineer James W. Abert (1820-1897), a West Point graduate, had charge of a 33-man party, and spent two or more days in the vicinity of this marker. Near here he was visited by Kiowa Indians, who said that they were at war with Texans. Abert was made welcome after he proved to be an American. His map of the river and notes on geography and the Indians proved valuable to Texas and the nation. (1974)