The Stone Houses

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Stone Houses of Archer County. Now, the name alone ought to stop you in your tracks. The Stone Houses.

Sounds like something out of a frontier legend — and friend, it is. These formations got their name from shapes resembling teepees, rising up out of the Texas landscape the way only this country can manage. And long before any settler ever laid eyes on them, this was an Indian ceremonial ground.

The earth here yielded war paint. Let that sit with you a moment. This was a sacred place, a working place, a place of meaning — before it became a place of blood.

Because on November 10th, 1837, something happened out here that nobody who survived it ever forgot. Lieutenant A. Van Benthousen was riding with eighteen Rangers.

Their errand, as the marker tells it, was practical enough — they were hunting stolen horses. But about a mile and a half west of where that marker stands today, the hunting stopped and the surviving started. One hundred and fifty Keechis came down on them.

Eighteen Rangers. One hundred and fifty Keechis. You do that math and you understand why they call it the Battle of Stone Houses instead of something tidier.

The fight lasted three hours. Three hours. In the open Texas landscape with the odds stacked the way they were stacked.

When it was over, ten Rangers were dead. Fifty Indians were dead. The ground had taken from both sides.

And then the Keechis fired the grass. The Rangers lost their horses in that fire. But they found a ravine — and through that ravine, the survivors escaped.

Then they walked. Walked back to the settlements. No horses, the land still smoldering behind them, and nothing but their boots and whatever was left of their nerve.

That's the Battle of Stone Houses. That's what this place carries. Time moved on the way time does.

Come 1874, the area's first permanent home went up near the stone houses, about five miles west of that marker. The man who built it was Dr. R.

O. Prideaux, English-born, who had come a long way to put down roots in ground this old and this storied. He was born in 1844 and lived all the way to 1930, and along the way he helped organize Archer County itself.

From ceremonial ground, to battlefield, to the first permanent home in the county. The Stone Houses have seen a lot of Texas happen around them. And now you have too.

What the marker says

Named for shapes resembling teepees; an Indian ceremonial ground, yielding war paint. In famed "Battle of Stone Houses," Nov. 10, 1837, Lt. A. Van Benthousen and 18 Rangers (hunting stolen horses) were attacked 1.5 miles west of here by 150 Keechis. Ten Rangers and 50 Indians died in 3-hour battle. Indians fired the grass. Rangers lost their horses but escaped through a ravine and walked back to settlements. In 1874, area's first permanent home was built near the stone houses (and 5 mi. W of here) by English-born Dr. R. O. Prideaux (1844-1930), who helped organize this county. Erected by Archer County Historical Survey Committee, 1970.