DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker records about the Kiowa Raid of 1868 in the southwest part of Cooke County. January. Eighteen sixty-eight.
Two days that would not be forgotten in those valleys — the fifth and the sixth. Chief Big Tree led a force of a hundred and fifty to two hundred Kiowas into the Willa Walla Valley, down along Clear Creek, and across Blocker Creek. That is not a small party.
That is a war movement. And what followed was exactly that — homes burned, thirteen people killed, and one woman scalped alive. The marker does not let you look away from that, and neither will I.
Ten women and children were taken captive. Of those ten, three managed to escape. Two more were ransomed.
That leaves five souls the marker does not account for further, and the silence in that arithmetic is its own kind of weight. The raiders pushed on, reaching Elm Creek at Gainesville before the land itself seemed to intervene — a blizzard forced their withdrawal. The cold stopped what the settlers alone could not.
But here is where one name enters the story. The marker calls George Masoner the Paul Revere of those valleys. While the raid was unfolding, Masoner rode ahead and warned settlers of the impending danger.
The marker is clear: more damage and more deaths would have resulted if he had not done it. How many lives that riding saved, nobody can say with certainty — but the marker says it mattered, and that is enough. Now, the marker does not let the story end without context, and neither should I.
These raids, it says, were in retaliation for the loss of hunting grounds to settlers. Two days of violence in January do not exist in a vacuum. They exist at the end of a long dispossession — and the marker holds both truths at once.
Two days. Two hundred warriors. One man on horseback riding hard against the dark.
The blizzard came, and the raiders turned back. But the Willa Walla Valley, Clear Creek, and Blocker Creek had already seen what January of 1868 had brought them, and no amount of snow was going to cover that over.
What the marker says
On Jan. 5-6, 1868, Chief Big Tree and 150 to 200 Kiowas raided Willa Walla Valley, Clear Creek and Blocker Creek. Burned homes; killed 13 people; scalped one woman alive. Captured 10 women and children; 3 escaped, 2 were ransomed. Raiders reached Elm Creek at Gainesville before blizzard forced withdrawal. More damage and deaths would have resulted if George Masoner had not become the "Paul Revere" of valleys and warned settlers of impending danger. Indian raids such as this one were in retaliation for loss of hunting grounds to settlers. (1968)