Peace on the Plains

What opened the talks was a homecoming. Gen. Henry Leavenworth had brought two Plains women who had been taken captive by the Osage, to be returned as goodwill. When the dragoons reached the Wichita on July 21, 1834, they met the father of a woman traveling with the expedition, and that reunion eased the negotiations held the next day. On the second day the Comanche and Kiowa came in, and Dodge won the Kiowa's trust by returning a Kiowa woman the Osage had taken in 1833. Leavenworth himself had died in the Cross Timbers that same July 21.

What the plaque says

Peace on the Plains About 5 mi., S.E. Wichita Village in Devil's Canyon was scene of 1st. meeting between the U.S. and Plains Indians in Oklahoma to pro- mote peace, July 21, 1834. U.S. Dragoon Regiment under command of Col. Henry Dodge accompanied by other noted of- ficers and civilians including Capts. David Hunter and Nathan Boone; 1st. Lt. Jefferson Davis; Ex-Gov. Montfort Stokes, N.C.; and George Catlin, Artist. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission 1949

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Quartz Mountain State Park — 2.2 mi
  The granite Quartz Mountains, the low western range of the Wichitas, rising from Lake Altus-Lugert, with a CCC-built park of 1937, a rebuilt lodge and the climbing rock of Baldy Point.
• Museum of the Western Prairie — 14 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum in Altus, telling southwest Oklahoma from the granite uplift through the Western Trail, Texas's Greer County, dugouts, irrigation and the air base.

More markers nearby

• Altus-Jackson County Well — 15 mi
• First Shelterbelt in the United States — 15 mi
• Camp Radziminski — 23 mi