Shootout at the Quanah Depot

The quarrel began with a runaway sheriff. A 1909 biography of McDonald says Joe Beckham, sheriff of Motley County, left office short in his accounts, and that Ranger McClure took him into custody and at Childress refused to hand him over to Matthews. The same account has Hardeman County Sheriff Dick Coffer standing between the two parties when the shooting began, and dropping flat. Matthews gave the press his own account afterward and denied any plot. The biography dates the fight to December 1895; the state register and other accounts give 1893.

What the plaque says

Shootout at the Quanah Depot An infamous gunfight between law enforcement officers occurred on December 9, 1893. Bad blood had been boiling between the two for months. At a sheriffs' convention in Houston, Childress County Sheriff Jonathan Pearce Matthews (1837-1893) had disrespected then-Governor James Hogg. A witness, Texas Ranger Captain William Jesse "Bill" McDonald (1852-1918), verbally reprimanded Matthews. Matthews took great offense to this and began making comments to others that one day he would kill McDonald. Later, Matthews' resentment grew over an instance in which Texas Ranger Bob McClure, an associate of McDonald, refused to turn over a prisoner to Matthews and instead escorted the prisoner to a different county where he could face stronger charges. With McDonald's usual men out of town on the prisoner escort, Matthews and three men rode the train from Childress to Quanah, where McDonald headquartered. Their purpose was clear: they were going to kill the ranger. McDonald, never one to back down from a fight, was at the depot when Matthews and his gang arrived. He met them south of the train platform, halfway between the depot and the opera house. McDonald called out Matthews for making threats. Matthews responded, "No. I didn't say that, but I'll tell you what I did say," and then a hail of bullets erupted from both sides. Who shot first is a mystery. In a matter of minutes, the whole affair ended, with Matthews being shot three times and McDonald twice. Matthews ultimately succumbed to his wounds on December 30, leaving behind a wife and one-year-old child. Men of both parties were arrested and tried, but none were convicted. Ranger McDonald lived on to become one of the "four great captains" of the Texas Rangers, dying in 1918 from natural causes. (2022)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Quanah, Acme and Pacific Depot Museum — steps away
  The Spanish Colonial Revival depot of a little railroad that set out for El Paso and never got past Floydada, now Hardeman County's museum alongside the county's 1890 jail.
• Copper Breaks State Park — 12 mi
  Red badlands on the Pease River between Quanah and Crowell, streaked with the green copper that lured a Civil War general here to mine, with longhorns and a dark-sky designation.
• Fire Hall Museum — 22 mi
  Crowell's local museum in the 1922 firehouse on Main Street, in a county-seat town that was almost wiped away by the tornado of April 1942 and rebuilt.
• Red River Valley Museum — 26 mi
  Vernon's museum on College Drive, with rooms on the Waggoner ranch empire, Doan's Crossing and early Vernon, and the largest known collection of Electra Waggoner Biggs's art.

More markers nearby

• Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway — steps away
• William Jesse McDonald — 0.7 mi
• Hardeman County — 0.9 mi
• W. P. A. Sanitation Project — 11 mi