The Stone Houses

The fight turned on one killing. Van Benthusen's rangers killed a Kichai guide on November 3 and spared the Cherokee and Delaware band he led. On November 10 they came upon the Kichai, who had stopped running and were ready. Cherokees and Delawares present are said to have tried to keep the peace, but ranger Felix McClusky jumped one man and killed him, then boasted he would kill any Indian for a plug of tobacco. The Kichai attacked, and eight rangers walked back, reaching the Sabine settlement on November 27.

What the plaque says

The Stone Houses Named for shapes resembling teepees; an Indian ceremonial ground, yielding war paint. In famed "Battle of Stone Houses," Nov. 10, 1837, Lt. A. Van Benthousen and 18 Rangers (hunting stolen horses) were attacked 1.5 miles west of here by 150 Keechis. Ten Rangers and 50 Indians died in 3-hour battle. Indians fired the grass. Rangers lost their horses but escaped through a ravine and walked back to settlements. In 1874, area's first permanent home was built near the stone houses (and 5 mi. W of here) by English-born Dr. R. O. Prideaux (1844-1930), who helped organize this county. Erected by Archer County Historical Survey Committee, 1970.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 15 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• 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.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 23 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.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 24 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Bridwell Park — 3.4 mi
• Markley Cemetery Decoration Day — 4.5 mi
• Town of Antelope — 5.1 mi
• Townsite of Old Farmer — 8.2 mi