I've been writing about Lubbock, Texas as I work on memoirs. I went to Texas Tech there in the late 1940's. Flat, flat, flat; brown and sandy, so different from my next stop in Lawrence, Kansas.
The east edge of the Panhandle was green in places, where streams emerged from under the Caprock. Comanches wintered in those canyons, Tule and Palo Duro. The Indians knew where the Playa lakes were; the US Cavalry did not.
Fort Elliot first US Army Post established in the Panhandle area, up north on the eastern edge. The fort protected the hide hunters, the plainsmen who soon eradicated the buffalo -- an official Government policy to starve the Indian tribes into submission.
A settlement named "Hide town" grew near the fort. Its walls were made from buffalo hides. By 1875 a saloon held notables such as Bat Masterson and Poker Alice. The town's name was changed to "Sweetwater."
Progress passed them by. Ranchers and farmers entered the Panhandle; other towns grew. Today, Fort Elliot survives as a concrete marker. Sweetwater is still on the maps. The name of the little town was changed to "Mootebie." Perhaps that's an Indian word for "Sweet water."
Stay tuned. My memoirs take me to Eastern Kansas, so different from the Panhandle and a culture so different from the drought-stricken Texans.
Dac Crossley
July 1, 2019
"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife." - John Dewey.
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