Published: October 13, 2009 10:12 pm         

An open mind can see history all around us

“What does it matter. There’s nothing here.”

Years ago, while standing at the overlook on the Washita National Battlefield Site in western Oklahoma, I was disappointed when the female half of the couple to whom I was speaking answered my enthusiasm with those words.

Back then, I rarely spoke out to strangers — I always figured my father, who would strike up a conversation with anyone, did enough of that for both of us — but history was my interest, and I assumed anyone who would stop along the road to look at the site’s markers would share that passion.

I was wrong. The couple didn’t care about tentative plans for an interpretive trail along the river where a massacre occurred more than 100 years ago. They had no interest in a center that one day might focus on the history of the area.

Since that day, I often have wondered why they stopped along a lonely stretch of a Roger Mills County highway to view a roadside monument that one day would boast those trails and would see that center.

I wonder since the visitor center was constructed if the couple returned.

There’s more to see now, but, then, there always was ... they just didn’t look hard enough.

For every patch of land in Oklahoma there is a tale to be told.

Behind a screen of trees, the wind pours over an abandoned home that leans away in a last effort to stay standing. A family filled with hope and dreams once walked its floors and smelled the scent of newly hewn pine wood.

Towns with streets now deserted echo with the memory of hundreds of townspeople who molded their state into the land it is today.

Time has dimmed their memories but never their history. There always is a story to be told.

In western Oklahoma, amid the grassy hills that roll beneath the more prominent Antelope Hills and where the tributaries of the Washita River run, a story unfolded 141 years ago.

Many lives were lost in what history called Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s greatest victory in the Plains Indians wars, the battle of Washita.

On Nov. 27, 1868, Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry on a surprise dawn attack against the Southern Cheyenne village of Chief Black Kettle, whose tribe was known for its work to negotiate peaceful interaction with the pioneers of the day.

Custer reported about 100 killed, though Indian accounts claimed 11 warriors plus 19 women and children lost their lives, according to the National Park Service, which maintains the site today. More than 50 Cheyenne Indians were captured, mainly women and children.

Custer’s losses consisted of two officers and 19 enlisted men killed. Most of the soldier casualties belonged to Major Joel Elliott’s detachment, who branched to the east and was overrun by Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa warriors coming to Black Kettle’s aid. Chief Black Kettle and his wife were killed in the attack.

Burial places of many of the victims as well as attackers are secreted by the land. Black Kettle’s grave is unknown, as are the graves of 18 cavalrymen thought to be somewhere in the hills northeast of the historic site. Others were buried at Fort Supply near Woodward.

The events of that day will be revisited at 7 p.m. Nov. 7 when Washita Battlefield will host scholar and writer Paul W. Hutton, who will deliver “Custer and the Washita,” focusing on how the attack reflected the emerging military policy for the West. Following the presentation there will be a question and answer session period, a reception and a book signing.

To see history, one has to be open to learning about it. Where one sees only dry grass-covered hills, another sees memories that shaped a land and a people.

History, you see, is more than meets the eye.



Great State of Mine is an article about the history of Enid and Oklahoma. Anyone with information or remembrances about history of the area or state can email violeth@enidnews.com.