Roaring Spring

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the land speak for itself. Now, before there were fences, before there were roads, before there was even a name on a map, this spring was already known. Roaring Spring, they'd call it, and the reason wasn't hard to figure.

The water here was pure. Not just drinkable; pure. And in a land where the sun will take everything it can get, pure water is the kind of thing that draws people across centuries.

And it did. From prehistoric days, this was a favorite Indian camp ground. Think on that a moment.

Prehistoric days. We're not talking about a few generations back. We're talking about people finding this place so far back in time that history hadn't even started keeping notes yet.

But history did eventually show up, and when it did, it showed up hard. December, 1860. This site, right here, was the main camp of the Comanche Indians.

And nearby, over in Foard County, close to a place called Medicine Mound, something happened that would echo across Texas for generations. Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured from the Comanche. Now, the marker doesn't linger on that word (recaptured), but you ought to.

Whatever you've heard about Cynthia Ann Parker, whatever that story means to you, it ran right through this country, through this camp, in December of 1860. And the spring kept flowing. There's one more thing the marker wants you to know about this place, and it comes down to us as tradition.

In the sandstones just north of this site, there are holes. And the tradition tells that corn was ground in those holes. Hands working stone, meal rising from rock, the ordinary daily labor of people who lived here and called this home.

The State of Texas put this marker up in 1936, but the spring was already old when the first person knelt beside it and drank. Some places carry their history in the stone itself. This is one of them.

What the marker says

From prehistoric days a favorite Indian camp ground * The main camp of the Comanche Indians in December, 1860 when Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured from them near Medicine Mound in Foard County * Famed for the purity of its water * Tradition tells of corn ground in the holes in the sand stones north of this site Erected by the State of Texas 1936