Ragtown to Riches

In the morning of Sept. 28, 1874, Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry swept into Palo Duro Canyon. The soldiers burned Indian camps, destroyed food supplies and—most importantly—captured and killed more than 1,100 horses, effectively putting an end to the Red River War. “The campaign was intended to force Southern Plains Indians, primarily Comanches, onto reservations,” says Michael Grauer, curator of Western Heritage at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, located a fe