Volume 8 Article 14 Issue 2 Winter

12-15-1988 The ichitW a Mountains: A Legacy in Granite Jim Logan

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Recommended Citation Logan, Jim (1988) "The ichitW a Mountains: A Legacy in Granite," Westview: Vol. 8 : Iss. 2 , Article 14. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol8/iss2/14

This Nonfiction is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Westview by an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. attractions for the human spirit T he Wichita Mo u n ta in s : A Legacy In G ranite By Jim Logan

Author’s note; This is dedicated to a person, now in her eighty-ninth year, of truly remarkable love and kindness — my grandmother, Lila- merle Logan. From a distance, they appear as ensuing encroachment, the broad of the far-reaching effect of Spanish gray bulges on the horizon. As one expanses of grassy valleys between culture on the region. Natives draws nearer, the Wichita Moun­ the mountains fed and sheltered have, for years, talked of an old tains, or Sierrajumanos (Mountains deer, elk, and antelope. The buffalo trail which once skirted the base of of Mortals), as the early Spanish grazed in countless thousands. Mt. Scott, and is said to have called them, rise abruptly and loom The first exploration of the connected Spanish possessions in stark contrast to the flat plains mountains was by the Spaniards. east of the Mississippi with their of Western Oklahoma surrounding They were drawn to the region by southwest holdings. Rusty knives, them. Named for the Wichita In­ the same two forces which brought pieces of armor, and other relics dians, whose history refers to the Spain to the new world; the desire found there give credence to the region as “from time immemorial” for more souls for the Catholic tales. Today, legend in the area is a part of their ancestral hunting church and more gold for the royal rich with stories of “the lost Spanish grounds, the mountain range treasury. In 1629, some ninety mines in the Wichita Mountains.” thrusts from near Lawton, south- years after Coronado’s first contact During the eighteenth and nine­ westward through Comanche, with the Wichita Indians, and a teenth centuries, the Kiowa, Co­ Greer, Kiowa, and Jackson counties, century and a half before American manche, and Wichita Indians and ending a few miles northwest of Independence, Father Juan de Salas, their allies, known collectively as Granite, and dominating an area escorted by an expediton from the plains tribes, claimed what is sixty miles long and twenty miles Santa Fe, journeyed to the moun­ now the western half of Oklahoma wide. Composed of huge granite tains to form a mission among the as part of their hunting grounds boulders and among the oldest Indians. They were hesitant to and shared the teeming wildlife mountains on earth, they are ac­ accept change and at times hostile. areas in and around the Wichita tually the crests of even larger He abandoned the effort twenty Mountains region. In 1833, a warring ranges extending beneath the earth’s years later. In 1650, Diego del band of Osage ranged southward surface and remain as graven Castillo and his soldiers foraged for into the area and surprised a Kiowa testament to a monumental up­ a greater part of a year among the village located at the headwaters of heaval during the earth’s infancy. mountains in search of gold and Otter Creek, southeast of present- Mount Scott, named for General silver. It is known that these day Gotebo. The Kiowa men were Winfield Scott of Mexican War adventurers did find some gold away at the time on a hunting trip. fame, stands sentinel, from its nuggets in the streams of the In a savage display of inter-tribal 2467 summit, over a view of grassy region. In 1956, researchers working warfare, the Osage war party valleys and tree-lined streams along Cedar Creek near Saddle attacked the inhabitants of the below, melting into a checkerboard Mountain verified the existence of village — all of whom were women, pattern of farm fields in the hazy a Spanish arrastra, a circular ditch old men, and children. The terrified distance. According to Indian legend, hewn from granite rocks through villagers tried to escape to higher the Great Spirit appeared at the top which large mill stones were pulled ground on a nearby hill but were of the mountain thousands of years by horses to aid in the separation of run down and massacred. The ago, following a devastating flood, gold ore from crushed rock. It lies Kiowa men, upon their return, calling his people to him and fur­ today in silent seclusion beneath a were met by the sight of their loved nishing them with the means by stand of trees south of Meers. ones’ bodies. The heads had been which to survive. In the days Although the date of its use is cut off and placed in copper buckets, before “manifest destiny” and the uncertain, it serves as a reminder neatly lined up in the center of the

28 W estview , W inter 1988 village. The area is known today as numerous village containing some die. Over the next quarter-century, Cutthroat Gap, and the nearby hill five or six hundred wigwams, all the fort would serve as a focal point as Decapitation Mountain. made of long prairie grass, thatched of the deterioration of Indian- In 1834, a United States Army over poles which are fastened in the American relations, imprisoning dragoon expedition journeyed to ground and bent in at the top; giving such feared names as Geronimo the Wichita Mountains to explore to them, in distance, the appearance and Satanta, the fierce Kiowa the area and establish formal re­ of straw beehives. To our very great chiefs who committed suicide rather lations with the plains tribes. surprise, we have found these people than exist behind bars. In its When General Leavenworth became cultivating quite extensive fields of shadows are buried the great chiefs ill and died, Colonel Henry Dodge corn, pumpkins, melons, beans, and Lone Wolf (Kiowa), Geronimo assumed leadership of the group, squashes; so with these aids, and an (Apache), and Quanah Parker described as “two hundred of the abundant supply of buffalo meat, (Comanche). most daring, healthy, and select they may be said to be living very In the latter half of the 1800’s, men of the corps, superbly mounted well. the Wichita range was a part of the and equipped as an elite frontier notorious Oklahoma badlands. force.” The group was notable for Reports continually circulated of the famous names in it — Nathan "T h e h e a d s h a d b e e n c u t robberies, hide-outs, murders, and Boone, Daniel’s son;Jefferson Davis, OFF AND PLACED IN COPPER hoardes of buried money associated who would become president of the BUCKETS, NEATLY LINED with the Daltons, Youngers, and Confederacy twenty-six years hence; UP IN THE C EN TER OF THE the James gang. Famed outlaw Bill and George Catlin, the most famous Doolin was killed by a posse near VILLAGE." painter of American Indians in Lawton in 1896. Frankjames farmed history. The expedition learned, not far from the mountains, outside from Comanche scouts, of a large The dragoons met with the Wich- present-day Fletcher, for a while. Wichita village in the mountains to ita tribe for several days. They It had long been known that the southwest. A few days later, secured, in an emotional meeting, granite was among the oldest rock the American force, low on food the release of a Negro man and a formations on earth and that quartz and with approximately half its nine-year-old white boy, who had veins were commonly found in the original nu mber dead from disease, been captives for quite some time, crevices between such formations. located the village in Devil’s Canyon, in exchange for a Kiowa and two Where there was quartz, there was a few miles southeast of present-day Wichita girls who had earlier been often gold or silver. Consequently, Lone Wolf. Hugh Evans, a member obtained in a trade with their during the 1890’s, prospecting got of the group, wrote the following Osage captors. During the council, into full swing in the Wichitas, account of the moment: over twothousand additional Kiowa, beginning in the Otter Creek area. On the evening of July 21st we Comanche, and Waco Indians came Small mining towns such as Golden reached the goal of our enterprise, to witness the meeting between the and Silverton sprang up as pros­ the long-sought village. We approached plains Indians and American forces. pectors swarmed over the northern a sweep of perpendicular mountains, It paved the way for agreements and western slopes of the mountains. whose tops are wholly inaccessible to and treaties essential to the ulti mate In 1901, Lawton, Oklahoma’s third the human foot from this side, and settlement of a great part of the largest city, was born practically reached the village through leads to Southwest and as such ranks as overnight as two million acres of it, a narrow defile which one hundred one of the most important military Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reserva­ good men, with a proper armament, expeditions in the history of the tion land was opened to White would keep against the countless plains. settlement. Newspapers such as legions that Napoleon led to Moscow. In 1869, the United States Army, the OTTER CREEK MINER and After passing through this, we im­ in need of a secure command post MOUNT SHERIDAN MINER rang mediately entered the village situated in the Southwest to protect White with such headlines as “The Wichita in a beautiful bottom, on the margin interests and discourage Indian Mountains: Future Mineral District of a river. raids, primarily into Northern of America and the Coming El Texas, assigned General Phillip Dorado of the World.” In 1901, The artist, Catlin, gave further Sheridan to personally stake out digging was going strong at the description in his diary: the location of what would become Gold Blossom mine near Meers. A ...near the base of a stupendous Fort Sill, named for a Union Civil large mining camp was at the base range of mountains of reddish granite, War officer. The first buildings of Mt. Sheridan. Practically every in many places piled up to an immense were erected not far from Medicine gulch had clusters of mining cabins, height without tree or shrubbery on Bluff Creek, below the sacred sheer and the hills bristled with claim them; looking as if they had actually bluffs, several hundred feet high, notices. In 1902, forty-three mines dropped from the clouds in such a where the Comanches and other honeycombed the slopes between confused mass, and all lay where tribes had for centuries brought Lawton and Lugert. There were they had fallen. We found here a very their wounded and sick to heal or the inevitable exaggerated reports

W estview , W inter 1988 29 of occasional strikes. Hope and rocky overhangs adorned with greed ran rampant. In the end, lichen in shades of burnt orange however, no gold or silver was ever and chartreuse. The late afternoon found in sustainable quantities. By whistles of bobwhites still echo off 1907, it was over. Some moved on the mountain walls, and the scis- to mineral fields in the Rockies and sortails still dance in the sun. In westward. Others stayed to ranch the autumn, the sumac and cot­ or farm the surrounding land and tonwood and Caddo maple leaves raise families. explode in gold and scarlet cele­ In 1905, President Theodore bration of another season of life. Roosevelt, alarmed at the near The valleys still offer calm reprieve extinction of the American buffalo from the Oklahoma wind, and in and other once abundant animal them, in the evenings, when the species, set aside 59,000 acres as light is right and the surrounding Saddle Mountain, in the Wichita the Wichita Mountain National granite walls take on a rosy glow, a Range. Photograph by the author. Wildlife Refuge. From a small person senses that now, as then, starting herd of fifteen buffalo, the for a short while, it is as if he and number has grown steadily into God have arrived at the same “T h e DESIRE FOR MORE several herds. The elk population, moment. SOULS FOR THE CATHOLIC hunted to extinction, was success­ From the beginning, the moun­ CHURCH AND MORE GOLD tains have attracted the human fully re-introduced. Longhorn cattle, FORTHE ROYAL TREASURY," descendants of the first animals spirit. It was in them that Moseo brought by Spanish conquistadores received the law. The early Indians to the continent in 1521, were came to them to fast, meditate, and something which too many people re-established from near-extinction, absorb their magical healing power. today take for granted. along with turkey and other wildlife. Today, we often make long journeys My mother’s parents farmed for Native bluestem, Indian grass, to them for just a few days’ peace almost half a century — through swith, and buffalo grass grow once and quiet. There seems to be a depression, dustbowl, and two again in verdancy. Small blue lakes sense of awe in most people toward world wars — within view of the with names like Treasure, Caddo, anything capable of surviving their mountains near Granite. Earlier, Osage, Quanah, and Lost Lake own feeble mortality. The Wichitas in the late 1800’s, on my father’s catch the mountain runoff. Today, are Western Oklahoma’s unique side of the family, my great-grand­ over a million visitors a year come legacy, seen today essentially as father brought his family by covered to the area to catch a glimpse of they were in the days of early wagon from Texas through the what the natural scene must have human history. They have wit­ Wichitas to present-day Leedey, looked like two hundred years ago. nessed, in unlocked silence, the avoiding hostile Indians in the unfolding of the fabric of natural mountains and ultimately finding and human history, woven of there water for his thirsty family. threads of good and evil, joy and In a very real sense, through the suffering, choice and chance. No­ genetic miracle that is seed, a small “T h e g r e a t s p i r i t a p - where in Oklahoma has there been part of me (and of my children) was PEAREDATTHETOPOFTHE a greater concentration of life and there. The mountains are today an MOUNTAIN THOUSANDS OF happening. A century and a half affirmation, not only of roots and YEARS AGO.” ago, an awed onlooker, viewing the the essential merit and resurgency Wichitas for the first time, wrote: of life, but of our oneness with Here the gradual swell, the beetling nature. They draw us somehow precipice, the castellated battlement, closer to our natural surroundings, The beauty of the place is still the solitary tower, the glittering, to history and those who preceded present, as timeless as it has been roaring cascade, the shady vale and us, to our Creator, and, ultimately, through history. Each year, in late opening vista, disclosing in turn to ourselves. ■ April, the redbuds, like early guests, distant views of new grandeur; all still spring forth in exuberant pink the rich combinations of mountain DR. JIM LOGAN is a 1962 contrast to the damp, dark backdrop scenery are here thrown together, graduate of Weatherford High School of bark and granite. The rains still forming an unrivaled whole, which, and a 1969graduate of the University spangle wild daisies and asters and in years to come, will be the goal of all of Missouri College of Dentistry. He Indian blankets in hues of yellow travelers on earth. has been a dentist in Weatherford for and red and white over the hills The words may be a bit flowery five years. This article is his first and valleys. The viewer still marvels by modern Western Oklahoma published work. at the marked clarity of the streams. standards; but the viewer, in his Mountain boomers scurry under wide-eyed reverence, possibly saw Illustrations by Sossee Eskidjian

30 Westview. Winter 1988