Big Pasture

The 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty set this land within the reservation of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache, and from the 1880s Texas cattlemen including Samuel Burk Burnett leased its grass through the agency. After the 1901 opening the government held the Big Pasture as the tribes' common land for their surplus cattle and kept leasing it to Texas ranchers for its Native owners until 1906, paying grass money at the Anadarko Agency. In 2000 Congress approved the Red River boundary compact over the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Intertribal Land Use Committee's objections.

What the plaque says

Big Pasture When Kiowa-Comanche-Apache lands in Oklahoma opened to white settlement 1901, there were 505,000 acres reserved as grazing lands. This area became known as Big Pasture. Most of region leased for cattle ranching. Because of soil's fertility, white people sought opening of Big Pasture to settlement and farming. Congress passed act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt June 5, 1906, providing such opening. Beginning December 10, 1906, farm lands and town lots sold to highest bidders on sealed bid basis. Bids opened starting March 15, 1907. Was last big land opening in Oklahoma. Within one year's time 2,337 families living in Big Pasture area. Eschiti and Kell, competing towns, combined in 1908 to found Grandfield. Only few miles from here, April of 1905, famous wolf hunt was held led by President Theodore Roosevelt. Captain R. B. Marcy and troops, with Lt. George B. McClellan second in command, passed short distance north of this point 1852 on way to find source of Red River. Oklahoma Historical Society 1962

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Walters, Oklahoma — 23 mi