Buffalo Springs

The army meant to stay. Two companies of the Sixth Cavalry came up from Jacksboro in 1867 with orders to build a permanent post at Buffalo Springs. One timeline has some 300 Comanches besieging the soldiers and the quartermaster's civilian employees for two days, until the Indians withdrew when a patrol returned. Water and timber ran short, and the troops went back south to found Fort Richardson. A Fort Richardson substation, Camp Wichita, stood near the springs, and the farming settlement began in 1878 when the Burnett brothers took up land near the ruins of an earlier outpost.

What the plaque says

Buffalo Springs A landmark as early as 1849. Watering place for buffalo hunters. Site of a proposed permanent United States Army post, July, 1867. Abandoned due to lack of water and timber, November 19, 1867, and Fort Richardson on Lost Creek was established instead, November 26, 1867. Served as a stage stand and camp ground between that post and Fort Sill. Scene of battle, July 12, 1874, between Indians and George W. Stevens, Captain of Texas Rangers. Erected by the State of Texas 1936 Buffalo Springs, C.S.A. On line of sentry forts along Red River and far frontiers of North Texas, 1861-1865. Used at intervals by cavalry, especially at such times as 1864 massing of 3,000 federals to the north, in Indian territory. Soldiers here saw little of war's glory, had large share of fighting and shortages of guns, ammunition, food, clothing and horses. Site of "forting up" of families wishing to stay, with goods and stock, near frontier homes; lived in picket houses in fortified square, placing guards on water or wood gathering parties; in 1862 left during water famine. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 20 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 23 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Kell House Museum — 32 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.

More markers nearby

• Shannon Cemetery — 8.7 mi
• Town of Antelope — 15 mi
• Montague County — 16 mi
• M. Johnson Poultry Ranch — 17 mi