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The Big Chief Speaks

Quanah Parker Visits the State Fair of Texas

The 1909 State Fair of Texas was probably one of the best ever held. In addition to the usual horse races, fireworks, and carnival rides, fairgoers were treated to the sight of a dirigible airship flying high over Fair Park and on October 3, there was an appearance by none other than the President of the United States, William Howard Taft, who delivered a speech before a packed race track grandstand, standing upon a platform specially reinforced to bear up under the chief executive's considerable weight. But no sight or experience generated more excitement than the visit, three days later, of legendary Comanche Indian chief Quanah Parker.

Born about 1847 in West Texas, Quanah was the son of two equally famous parents, Comanche chieftain Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman who had been kidnapped by the Comanches at Parker's Fort in Limestone County in 1836. The eldest of Cynthia Ann's children, Quanah grew up to become one of the Southwest's most feared and respected Indian leaders. His exploits are well-documented in the annals of Texas history. It was Quanah who led the abortive attack on Adobe Walls, a Panhandle trading post, in 1874, and it was his defeat in a surprise attack by U.S. Army cavalry soldiers later that same year at Palo Duro Canyon which led to his tribe's surrender at Fort Sill in 1875.

In defeat, Quanah was able to remain an influential Indian leader and he prospered through taking up many of the ways of his mother's people. He became a cattleman and though he continued throughout his life to wear his long black hair in two Indian-style plaits, he also sported a white Stetson hat. When the occasion called for it, he donned a dark, three-piece business suit as well. Since he was half-white, this did not seem odd to many people. His past marauding forgiven, or at least overlooked, he had friends among the great cattle barons of Texas and was spoken of, particularly in Texas and the Southwest, in tones of admiration and respect.

Although he lived on a federal reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Quanah was free to come and go as he pleased. He traveled extensively, often attending the annual Fat Stock Show in Fort Worth. On one particular visit, in 1885, he came close to dying when his father-in-law, Yellow Bear, with whom Quanah was sharing a hotel room, went to bed after blowing out the flame of the gas lamp which lit their room, failing through ignorance of the white man's technology to turn off the gas supply valve. The next morning, alerted by the strong smell of gas, rescuers broke down their door and found Yellow Bear dead and Quanah nearly so. This incident affected him deeply. When asked about it later in life, he refused to comment and would only shrug his shoulders "in displeasure" at the asking.

1909 was not Quanah's first visit to the State Fair of Texas. He was there on Opening Day of the very first fair, then called the Dallas State Fair and Exposition, October 26, 1886. That trip had been made at the behest of U.S. Marshall (later mayor of Dallas) Ben Cabell, who had been sent to Indian Territory by the Fair's promoters to bring back some Indians willing to perform at the Fair. That first evening, in the company of a group of Comanche and Choctaw braves and squaws, Quanah toured the electrically-lit fairgrounds, a sight fascinating to both white men and red men alike in an era when many people still used candles for night-time illumination. During the run of the Fair, the Indians made a big hit by performing ceremonial dances in front of the racetrack grandstand each night. The citizens of Dallas, many of whom had probably never seen a real Indian in the flesh, were intrigued. However, it's uncertain whether Quanah himself participated in the dancing.

During the next two decades, Quanah grew wealthy and respected. He gave up living in a teepee and took up residence in a rambling wooden home built for him by his cattleman friend Burk Burnett. Located near Cache, Oklahoma, the house had large white stars painted on the roof and was called "The Comanche White House" in deference to the influence and leadership of its occupant. Although he had a thriving cattle business, Quanah found time to serve as a judge on the Court of Indian Offenses and was a deputy sheriff of Lawton, Oklahoma, as well as a school board president! On more than one occasion he traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on behalf of his people. Over the years he met with Presidents Cleveland, McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt. He went wolf-hunting with Roosevelt and in 1905, rode in the President's inaugural parade, alongside the equally-famous Apache chief, Geronimo.

In 1886, the year of his first Texas state fair visit, Quanah was honored by the citizens of Hardeman County, in West Texas, when they named a new town after him. Flattered by this gesture, he traveled all the way to the community of Quanah to give the town and its citizens his blessings. He even invested a considerable sum of money in a short rail line called the Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railroad. It was on behalf of this "Quanah Route," as it was called, and the people of Hardeman and Cottle counties that the chief made his second visit to Dallas and the state fair, in 1909.

Traveling by train from the town of Quanah to Fort Worth, where they boarded a Texas and Pacific car for the thirty-mile ride to Dallas, Quanah was accompanied by at least two of his eight wives and a number of his children. According to contemporary newspaper reports the chief was dressed in "ordinary citizen attire" and it was noted that aside from his high cheekbones and his braided black hair, his appearance was more like that of a prosperous rancher (which he was) than a Comanche chieftain (which he also was). His wives, however, wore traditional Indian clothing and one even carried a papoose on her back.

Although photographs of Quanah Parker taken during this period usually depict a stern-visaged man, Quanah was not without a sense of humor, somewhat leg-pulling in nature. When a newspaper reporter asked the names of his wives, the chief replied dryly, "Mrs. Parker." He added, tongue-in-cheek, that their Indian names were too long for him to remember.

Fair Park's convention tent was packed with curious fairgoers and citizens of West Texas when the chief appeared on "Quanah Route Day" - October 26, 1909. Many in attendance wore badges bearing a likeness of his face, and the words "Hear the Big Indian Speak."

When the "Big Indian" finally strode onto the stage to face his expectant audience at a little past 3 o'clock that afternoon, he must have been an impressive sight. Although his face was wrinkled, at the age of sixty-two his hair was still black, his eyes clear, and his back straight. It was reported that he spoke "in a clear voice...using English which was remarkably good." Having changed from his white man's clothes into traditional Indian attire, including a war bonnet and spear, Quanah told of his pleasure at visiting the Fair, calling it "a big show of good things."

That afternoon, to an enthralled audience, Quanah spoke on many diverse subjects but the highlight of his speech was a correction of the generally accepted version of the death of his father, Peta Nocona. When Sul Ross, a Texas Ranger who later became Governor of Texas, led the raid in which Quanah's mother was recaptured, Ross believed he had killed Nocona. Not so, said Quanah. The man killed in that battle, he claimed, was a brother of Nocona. The old chief himself died seven years later, of disease.

Following his talk, thousands of people gathered around Quanah to meet him and shake his hand. Later, he caused a sensation as he toured the fairgrounds with his family, making an impromtu speech to a large crowd gathered near the racetrack grandstand. Viewing a replica of the Alamo chapel, which had been presented to the Fair by The Dallas Morning News only a few days earlier, Quanah remarked, "Alamo fight was brave like Indian fight...It must make Texas people feel good to look at this and think of what it stands for. It was a fine thing for The News to put it here."

Quanah made his third and final visit to Dallas almost exactly one year later when once again he was invited to appear on "Quanah Route Day" at the Fair. Arriving on the grounds the day before his scheduled appearance, he was again the center of attention as he drove around in an open automobile with members of his family. It was noted in a local newspaper that the chief, who had faced the white man's bullets on numerous occasions in the past, could not be persuaded to ride the "Shoot the Chutes" ride on the "Pike," the forerunner of today's State Fair Midway.

In his 1910 speech, not essentially different from that given the previous year, Quanah no doubt amused his audience when he declared, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I used to be a bad man. Now I am a citizen of the United States. I pay taxes the same as you people do!" He went on to boast of his friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt, at the same time lambasting the President's party, the Republicans, as the reason why "times are hard." He also told of his successful efforts to have his mother's body reinterred near his home in Oklahoma.

Sadly, only four months later, in February 1911, Quanah Parker died and buried next to Cynthia Ann in Post Oak Cemetery at Cache, Oklahoma. In his State Fair appearances he had shown Texans something they would never see again - one of the last of a generation of Indians who defied the march of white civilization, one of the last living reminders of an era which had already passed forever into history. Both Quanah Parker and the American frontier were no more.

Copyright © 1986 and 2002-2003 by Steven Butler. All rights reserved.