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Great Panhandle Indian Scare
On this day in 1891, sixteen years after the Plains Indians had been
confined to reservations, several settlers near the site of present
Wellington in Collingsworth County became convinced that hostile Indians
were returning to their old lands. Mrs. Will Johnson brought her two
children to Henry Stall's farm, where her husband and W. L. Huddleston
were visiting, and told of hearing "bloodthirsty yells" and seeing smoke
in the distance. Huddleston rode to Salisbury, where the depot agent
wired for help, and the townspeople barricaded themselves wherever they
could. Area ranchers sent out runners with news of an impending Indian
raid, and panic spread as far west as Amarillo and as far south as
Plainview and Floydada. At the Mill Iron Ranch, several families without
firearms gathered at John Gist's dugout and stored piles of rocks to
throw at the Indians. In Clarendon, Henry W. Taylor's hardware store was
picked clean of guns and ammunition. A company of Texas Rangers
commanded by Capt. William J. McDonald traveled by rail to defend the
"front line" in Collingsworth County. Once there, they discovered the
cause of the yelling and smoke that Mrs. Johnson had reported.
Apparently S. H. Vaughn, foreman of the Rocking Chair Ranch, had ordered
his men to kill a steer for supper. They had fired several shots and,
during preparations for cooking, had accidentally incinerated the
carcass. It took three days for the general panic to subside. The
unfounded rumors were fueled by reports of the Ghost Dance religion, in
which the Sioux and other northern Plains tribes were involved, and by
fear of retaliation for the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota the
previous December. Some settlers blamed Charles Goodnight and other
ranchers for purposely spreading the scare in an effort to discourage
further agricultural settlement. After several years had passed, the
settlers were able to laugh at themselves, and the story of the "attack"
became a favorite among Panhandle pioneers.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- GREAT PANHANDLE INDIAN SCARE
- ROCKING CHAIR RANCH
- GOODNIGHT, CHARLES
- PANHANDLE
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Texas votes to secede (1861)
- Abolitionist receives controversial empresario contract (1844)
- Rangers ambush Apaches at Hueco Tanks (1881)
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