In the spring of 1874 a handful of men and one woman set out for the Texas
Panhandle to seek their fortunes in the great buffalo hunt. They intended to
establish a trading post to serve the hunters, or "hide men," and at a place
called Adobe Walls they dug blocks from the sod and built their center of
operations.
  
    After only a few months, angry members of several Plains Indian tribes,
whose survival depended on the rapidly shrinking bison herd, attacked the
post. Initially defeated, the attacking Indians retreated. But the defenders
also retreated, and intent on erasing all traces of the white man's presence,
the Indians burned the deserted post. Nonetheless, tracings did remain,
and in the ashes were buried minute details of the hide men's lives.

    Adobe Walls tells us much about the dying of the Plains Indian culture
and the march of white commerce across the frontier.

_________________________________________________________

T. LINDSAY BAKER is the author of many books, including Lighthouses
of Texas, also published by Texas A&M University Press, and is director
of the Texas Heritage Museum in Hillsboro, Texas. BILLY R. HARRISON
was curator of archaeology at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in
Canyon, Texas.



What people are saying about this book


". . . a milestone in the historical archaeology of the Southern Plains
and an eloquent testimony to the cooperation of scholars with two
different but obviously complementary perspectives."—Journal of
American History