The Battle of Adobe Walls
THE CHARGE ON ADOBE WALLS
l (From Hi* Muting by I N. Marthand)
P«-an-rit«
Billy Dixon
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
IXTY years ago this month there
occurred a fight, the story of which
has become one of the classics of
the Western frontier. That was the
Battle of Adobe Walls which began
on the early morning of June 27,
1874, when a war party of several
hundred Comanche, Kiowa, Chey
enne, Arapahoe and Kiowa Apache
Indians attacked a buffalo hunters’
camp, occupied by 28 men and one woman,
located on the south fork of the Canadian river
In what Ib now Hutchinson county In the Texas
Panhandle. -y~
Characteristic of Its ranking as a frontier clas
sic Is the number of men who at one time or
another have been called "survivors” of the
Adobe Walls fight. Seemingly every old-timer
who was ever a buffalo hunter on the South
western plains In the 70s has been accorded the
distinction of “He fought at Adobe Walls’’ by
amateur historians and Imaginative newspaper
reporters, and this, despite the fact that there
has been In existence for many years an authen
tic list 9f the actual participants which might
easily disprove the claim advanced In favor of
spurious defenders of that outpost of the fron
tier.
Under the terms of the Medicine Lodge treaty
of 1867, the federal government fixed the Arkan
sas river as the northern boundary of the Indian
country for the tribes of the Southwestern
plains and guaranteed that white hunters should
not cross that stream. But they did.
In 1872 the mushroom town of Dodge City,
Kan., sprang Into existence and became the out
fitting point and center of activity of the hide
hunters who, with their big Sharps buffalo guns,
were constantly Invading the red man's country.
By the spring of 1874 the slaughter had been
eo great that the buffalo had been virtually
wiped out near Dodge City. So A. C. Myers, who
was In the general merchandise business In
Dodge, organized an expedition to establish a
trading post farther south where the hunters
could get their supplies and to which they would
bring their buffalo hides which Myers would
freight back to the Kansas “hide capital." Form
ing a partnership with Fred Leonard and accom
panied by a party of 20-odd frontiersmen, Myers
set out for the forbidden Indian country.
Among the members of the party were Jim
Hanraban, an old buffalo hunter who was going
along to open a saloon at the new trading post;
Thomas O’Keefe, a blacksmith; and two young
buffalo hunters destined for future fame—Billy
Dixon and Bat Masterson. After a Journey of
160 miles the expedition reached a spot on the
south fork of the Canadian where stood the
ruins of an old trading post, known as Adobe
Walls, which bad been built by William Bent
and Ceran St Vraln, some time before 1840.
A mile or so farther on, In a broad valley where
there was a pretty stream called East Adobe
Walls creek, Myers and his companions unloaded
their wagons and set about establishing the sec
ond Adobe Walls which was to become even more
famous than the first
Myers and Leonard built a picket house, 20
by 00 feet In size; Hanrahan put up a sod house,
25 by 60, and O'Keefe opened his blacksmith
shop In a picket structure, 15 feet square. My
ers and Leonard also built a stockade corral by
setting big cottonwood logs’on end In the ground.
A short time later, Bath and Wright, leading
merchants of Dodge City, decided to establish
a branch store at Adobe Walls and built a sod
house, 16 by 20 feet, leaving James Langton In
charge of the new business there. To Adobe
Walls also came William Olds and his wife to
open a restaurant.
For several years the Indians had been watch
ing with Increasing alarm the wasteful slaugh
ter of the buffalo by the white hunters. So
when In the spring of 1874 a Comanche medi
cine man named Isatai announced that he had
a new medicine which would enable them to
Chief
Quanah
wipe out the white men who were exterminating
the buffalo, he found the tribesmen ripe for
such a crusade.
The first Indian leader to agree to help In
this laudable enterprise was a chief of the
Comanches, Quanah, the half-breed son of Cyn
thia Ann Parker, who as a little girl had been
stolen from her home In Texas and had be
come the wife of the great Chief Peta Nocona.
Then the medicine man “carried the pipe” to
the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Klowas and Kiowa
Apaches and they readily agreed to accompany
their Comanche brethren.
So a great war party of between 600 and 700
mounted warriors set out for the buffalo hunt
ers’ camp and on the night of June 26 they
camped about five or six miles from Adobe
Walls, began painting themselves and their
horses and preparing themselves for the charge
against the hated white men. “Those men shall
not fire a shot; we shall kill them all,” was the
promise of Isatal.
That night at Adobe Walls 28 men and one
woman slept peacefully, little realizing that a
storm of savage wrath was about to be hurled
against them. In Hanrahan's saloon were Han
rahan, Bat Masterson, Mike Welch, Hiram Wat
son, Billy Ogg, James McKinley, “Bermuda”
Carlisle, Billy Dixon and a man named Shep
herd. In Myers and Leonard’s store were Leon
ard, James Campbell, Edward Trevor, Frank
Brown, Harry Armltage, Billy Tyler, "Old Man”
Keeler, Mike McCabe, Henry Lease and two
men known only as “Dutch Henry” and
“Frenchy.” In Rath and Wright’s store were
James Langton, George Eddy, Thomas O’Keefe,
Sam Smith, Andrew Johnson and William Olds
and his wife. Just outside the stockade two
brothers named Shadier, who bore the nick
names of “Mexico Ike” and “Blue Bill” and who
were engaged in freighting hides to Dodge City,
were sleeping In their wagons with a big New
foundland dog at their feet.
About two o’clock In the rooming Shepherd
and Mike Welch were awakened by a report
that sounded like the crack of a rifle. They
sprang up and discovered that the big cotton
wood ridge pole which supported the dirt roof
of Hanrahan's saloon had cracked and was
about to allow the roof to collapse. Hastily
awakening others In the place, they set to work
repairing the roof and this commotion aroused
others who fell to and assisted them.
Before going to sleep, Dixon and Hanrahan
had prepared themselves for an early start
In the morning for the buffalo hunting grounds
to the northwest. By the time the repairs to
the roof of the saloon were completed, the sky
was growing red in the east So Hanrahan pro
posed to Dixon that, Instead of going back to
bed, they get ready to start out as soon as it
was light To this Dixon agreed and as he
started to get his horse be looked down the val
ley and there, through the dim light of the
morning, he saw a sight which almost paralyzed
him for a moment
A dark mass of horsemen was moving swiftly
up the valley and tin? next moment It had spread
out like a fan and a mighty war-whoop shat
tered the stillness. Isatal was coming with bis
host of wild tribesmen to make good his prom
ise to wipe out the buffalo hunters at Adobe
Walls. Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, Dixon
fired one shot, then turned and sped toward the
Hanrahan saloon as the wild charge of the
Indians swept down upon him. But this hasty
warning was enough to bring the occupants of
the saloon, who were already awake and dressed,
to the windows with their big buffalo guns In
their hands.
“We were scarcely Inside before the Indians
had surrounded all the buildings and shot out
every window pane,” Billy Dixon says. “For the
first half hour the Indians were reckless and
daring enough to ride up and strike the doors
with the butts of their guns.” And Andrew John
son has recorded how the savages backed their
horses up against the doors of the buildings
and tried to push them In, showing a willing
ness to fight at close quarters almost unpar
alleled In Indian warfare.”
But the steady fire of the buffalo hunters soon
discouraged this and after beating off several
attacks, the white men bad a chance to take
stock of their losses. Strange to say, there were
only three. The two Shadier boys, asleep la
their wagon outside the stockade, had been
killed and scalped. Their big (Newfoundland dog
had evidently put up a flghf, for he was also
killed and “scalped”—a piece of hide having
been cut from his side. Billy Tyler, one of the
delenders of the Leonard and Myers store, was
killed early In the fighting and except for som«
minor wounds these were the only casualties.
Time after time the Indians charged, but ai
their ponies were knocked down by the heavy
slugs of lead from the buffalo guns and mors
and more of their warriors were killed or
wounded. It began to dawn upon them that Isa
tal bad been a false prophet. So the charges
ceased. During one of these lulls a young Co
manche, gorgeously appareled In war bonnet
and scalp shirt and mounted on a fine pony,
made a lone charge toward the buildings In
the face of a hot fire from the hunters. Riding
up close to one of the buildings, he leaped from
his pony, thrust a six-shooter through a port
hole and emptied It. He then attempted to
retreat but was shot down. This daring war
rior who had hoped to make a great name for
himself by his lone charge was Pe-ah-rlte, the
son of Horseback, one of the leading chiefs of
the Comanches.
By late afternoon the Indians had given up
hope of wiping out the defenders of Adobe
Walls and began to withdraw. After an anxious
night of watchfulness the buffalo hunters dis
covered the next morning that only a few Indians
were lingering around the place and they were
soon driven off by some long distance shots.
During the second day hunters from some of the
outlying camps made their way unmolested Into
Adobe Walls and that night one of them, Henry
Lease, was sent to Dodge City for help.
On the third day a party of about 15 Indians
appeared on a high bluff east of Adobe Walls,
but they were quickly dispersed by a shot from
Billy Dixon’s rifle which knocked one of the
savages from his horse. It Is this incident that
gave rise to one of the oft-repeated myths
about the Adobe Walls affair, different accounts
of It placing the distance of the shot all the
way from a mile to a mile and a half I By
Dixon’s own testimony “The distance was not
far from three-fourths of a mile. ... I was
admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what
might be called a ‘scratch’ shot*
More hunters came In on the third day ant
by the sixth day there were folly a hundred
men gathered there. It is among these late
comers that so many of the “survivors*’ of later
years were numbered. But by this time the
danger from the Indians had passed. The red
men had departed for a series of raids In Kan
sas and Texas which soon brought the military
Into the field and resulted In their eventual de
feat But before the affair at Adobe Walls ended
there was one more tragedy, one which dark
ened the life of the brave woman defender, Mrs.
Olda On the fifth day her husband was coming
down a ladder with a gun In his hand when It
went off accidentally, and she rushed from an
adjoining room In time to see his body roll from
the ladder and crumple at her feet
Today three monuments stand on the site of
Adobe Walla One Is a small slab of granltf
which marks the grave of William Olda An
other marks the last resting place of the Shad
ier brothera The third is a huge red granite
monument which tells that "Here on June 37,
1874, about 700 picked warriors from the Oe
manche, Cheyenne and Kiowa Indian tribes
were defeated by 28 brave frontiersmen” and
It bears the names of the 28 who truly “foughl
at Adobe Walla”
• br Wutarn N«rq«(w Oslo*.
Battling With New York’s Unemployed
-.' " ■ 1,1 ' I 11 .. . HIM
This luckless demonstrator feels the weight of a policeman's night stick while female comrades, shouting
wildly, grab his coattails and endeavor to pull him out of danger. He was one of the 1,000 unemployed whs
staged a pitched battle with police In front of the department of public welfare offices in New York City.
Work on Norris Dam Is Progressing Well
This photograph shows the progress that Is being made on Norris dam on the Clinch river 25 miles from
Knoxville, Tenn. Excavation work In the first coffer dam, plainly visible, Is nearly finished. Preparations
were being made to pour the concrete which will be carried to Its proper place In dump buckets attached
to the cableway pulleys shown In the foreground.
Hawaiian Heiress Weds a Lawyer
Juliet Alugoon, Honolulu heiress and daughter of the first white
family to settle In Honolulu, Is the bride of Joseph L. Falner, Los Angeles
attorney, and the honeymooners are pictured here on the liner Malolo
after an elaborate wedding at “Magoon Castle” on the slopes of Diamond
Head, the extinct crater that overlooks Honolulu.
Coast Guard Is Getting Planes
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., secretary of the treasury, and Rear Admiral
Harry O. Hammond, commandant of Hie coast guard, Inspecting the first
of a fleet of Chance Taught nary pursuit-type planes destined for use by
tbs coast guard.
WINS BRITISH TITLE
W. Lawson Little of California
captured the British amateur golf
title In the tournament at Prest
wick, Scotland. In the final round he
defeated Jimmy Wallace of Scotland
by a display of astonishing golf. He
is a student In Stanford university.
PREMIER OF POLAND
Prof. Leon Kozlowskl, who bat
been serving as flee minister of
finance, has been appointed premiss
of Poland.