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If you ever get a chance, they have some great exhibits at “Frontier Texas” in Abilene. The Comanche shield with the three different colored braids is really cool to see. It’s a little hokey, but still worth the visit. The Panhandle-Plains Museum in Canyon is top of the line and must see for folks interested in this part of the world.

Just a side note, a guy dug a Plainview today near Austin that may be one of the largest ever found. It’s supposed to be almost 7” long. If I can figure out how to link the video, I’ll put it on here.

That is a beautiful point! 8,000 years old and 7 inches long.

Yep. Frontier Texas is a great place to visit. The Holographic “guides” are a little hokey, but the artifacts and gun exhibits are first class. It’s all about the trail of TX Frontier Forts established in the 1850’s to protect the early pioneers from the Comanches. The Buffalo herd experience in the surround theatre is awesome. Nice little Bookstore inside too.
Best of all, it’s free.

Also, Ft Chadbourn, 50 miles S of Abilene on Hwy 277 is one of the best of the old restored TX Forts to visit. It has one of the largest collections of arrowheads and guns in the State.
It is privately owned, but still State funded, and still free to visit. It’s been featured on Fox Business News “Strange Inheritance “ TV Show, and a couple of other TV documentary’s.

Do you know if this was found at one of those pay to dig places?

Edit

Just checked with archaeologist son. He had already heard about it. Yeah thats from the Tolbert site. Pay to dig site about 4 miles north of me here.

Didn’t know if that was still legal or not.

Yeah Neal as long as it’s your property.

Good to know! 😬

Human remans can get dicey

My brother and I hunt a site about a mile from where they found the midland woman. He found a Clovis on one of the days I didn’t go.

Does anyone have a paperback copy of The life and times of Billy Dixon and the Adobe Walls they would like to sell?
Thanks,
Ed

Amazon has the paperback edition for 7 bucks or so, Ed. I had it downloaded on my kindle for a dollar

Life and adventures of Billy Dixon - Adobe Walls

Got it!
Thank you!
Have a great weekend,
Ed

RIP Ford states in his memoirs re: the Mexican War that the Walker Colt was comparable in power to a rifle, and later on in those same collected memoirs puts the revolver and bow on a parity. Certainly the 1851 Navy Colt was ubiquitous in Texas by 1858 according to Olmstead, and in 1860 (??) their ‘51 Navys certainly did save the lives of John Bell Hood’s 2nd US Cavalry patrol when ambushed at close quarters by Comanches on foot.

Problem is though with respect to Plains Indian warfare is finding altercations where revolvers made much of a difference in the overall scheme of things. Certainly there was no discernible Comanche death toll after the revolver appeared.

In 1860 there were 600,000 people in Texas, which would mean about 120,000 men of combat age, many of whom had revolvers and horses. If we estimate at least 60,000 mounted Texans with revolvers in 1860, almost none of these ever rode out against Comanches.

RIP Ford, the preeminent Indian fighter of his generation used rifles, including a lot of .54 cal round ball Mississippi’s in his battles with Comanches, if only because their revolvers were persistently “unserviceable”.

It’s been a while since I read Walter Prescott Webb but IIRC in his book The Texas Rangers includes but one or two episodes against Indians simply because after the Civil War Rangers didn’t chase Indians much. IIRC the Winchester rifles of the Rangers were the primary weapons used.

The Texas Frontier Battalion along with elements of Confederate Cavalry did go out against Comanches in 1864, decided to attack a camp of Kickapoos instead, and got their a$$es handed to them at Dove Creek by those expert Kickapoo riflemen.

Probably who was cutting the widest swathe in Comanche, Kiowa and Apache raiders in the 1850’s were the Seminoles and Black Seminoles based at El Remolino south of Piedras Negras on the Rio Grande, interdicting Indian raids in return for sanctuary in Mexico. Again primarily armed with rifles.

And of course the greatest slaughter ever of Comanches, an estimated 180 dead at the hands of 100 Texians and a handful of Lipan Apache Scouts occurred in the winter of 1840 on the North Fork of the Colorado under the command of Ranger Captain John Moore. After his disastrous foray on the San Saba the previous year Moore listened to his Lipan scouts this time and surprised the sleeping camp. Except for one revolving carbine and presumably a brace of Paterson’s in the hands of Moore, that historic slaughter was accomplished with muzzlloadig rifles, prob’ly ay least half flintlocks.

Of course all firearms pale into insignificance relative to the greatest Comanche killer of them all: cholera. Seeded across the Plains likely from San Antonio by emigrants in the Gold Rush of ‘49, killed an estimated 10,000 Comanches, half the tribe, in the winter of ‘49/‘50.

Not my lowdown, but an actual account with a ring of truth to it, and no piles of dead Indians either.

According to this author It began with piracy......

http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/Jim-Bowies-Fight-at-Calf-Creek.htm

Interesting!!! Thanks Mike.

CF Eckhardt, 1940 - 2015..... RIP

Never head of him before I googled up the Calf Creek account... wrote some excellent pieces on Texas History.

Here’s another:

Rangers Creek of Gold

Links upon links, from that same Texas Escapes compilation a column by one Murray Montgomery re the Texas Cattleman George West, who has a town of that name (George West TX) still named after him.

Lots of towns named after people, not too many with first names included tho.

Of special significance tho, in 1870 George West had a government contract to deliver 14,000 head of South Texas cattle to Montana (sounds familiar 🙂)

http://www.texasescapes.com/MurrayMontgomeryLoneStarDiary/George-West-Cattleman-n-Town-Founder.htm

Great. Thanks, Birdy. So, that silver may still be on my friend's Blockhouse ranch. Humm. Lots of hard rock ground in that country except in the San Saba bottom. If its not buried in the bottom, they would have had to do a lot of pickax work.