Originally Posted by EthanEdwards
If you're asking about the walls themselves, they came from a trading post dating to 1843 supposedly. Kit Carson fought a bunch of Kiowas, Comanches and Lipan Apaches there in 1864. Then the battle you're talking about occurred in 1874. The walls had been taken over by the Dodge City hide-merchant, Charlie Rath, who was operating a supply store there. A couple of outbuildings and a corral were there and there were a bunch of raw hides stacked around it. The buildings were sod. A main support log in the general store cracked in the middle of the night and a bunch of the hunters got up and replaced it. They were up when the contingent of Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes and Arapahos attacked. Otherwise they'd probably have been slaughtered.

Billy Dixon had lost his gun crossing a flooded creek before the fight began. I believe it was in one of his hide wagons which floated off. It was either a 44-90 or 44-77 Sharps, IIRC. The 50-90 Sharps he made the shot with was indeed a borrowed gun.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]


Rath also had another store / trading post not far from the Ranch here. It was called Rath City. Within view of the Double Mountains, of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River which I can see from the back porch.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rath_City,_Texas

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/rath-city-tx

Last edited by chlinstructor; 09/21/20.
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