The 1865 Indian Creek Raid

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Late in the 1850s, something was shifting out on the north Texas frontier, and not slowly. The Indian nations who had watched white settlers push further and further onto their lands were growing restive, and who could blame them.

That restlessness had teeth. From 1859 all the way through 1875, numerous attacks on Anglo settlers marked the landscape like dark milestones along a road nobody wanted to be on. This is the story of one such incident.

September of 1865, near this very site on Indian Creek in Tarrant County. Two Denton County residents (a man named Smith and a man named Wright) found themselves face to face with fifteen mounted Indians. Fifteen.

Two men, fifteen riders bearing down on them. Wright was killed. Smith took an arrow, wounded, bleeding, but still in the saddle, and he rode hard for Denton to get help.

Now you might think that making it to Denton meant making it out of this story alive. It did not. Within a short time, Smith died from blood poisoning caused by his wound.

He survived the raid only to be claimed by it anyway. Two men rode out that September day. Neither one came home.

The marker doesn't editorialize. It doesn't have to.

What the marker says

During the late 1850s Indians on the north Texas frontier became increasingly restive about continued white settlement on their lands. As a result, numerous attacks on Anglos occurred during the years form 1859 to 1875. One such incident took place in Sept. 1865 near this site when 15 mounted Indians attacked two Denton County residents by the names of Smith and Wright. Wright was killed, and Smith, wounded by an arrow, rode to Denton for help. Within a short time, Smith died from blood poisoning caused by his wound. (1983)