Quanah Parker on Horseback

"They're coming!  They're coming!  Have you heard?" screamed the young girl.  She was very excited.  She could see Quanah Parker and his tribe on horseback.  The Indians were dressed up in their best clothes.  Everyone in town was at the railroad station. "Are they here yet?" yelled a boy.

Quanah Parker had talked to his friend Theodore Roosevelt.  He had asked his friend to set aside land for a wildlife refuge. 

Almost all of every type of animal was gone by 1907 from the Wichita Mountains.  All of the animals had been killed.  General Sheridan shot the last native elk.  The buffalo were gone.  The antelope were gone.  The wolves were gone.  The mountain lions were gone.   Quanah Parker and the people of Lawton wrote many letters.  They wanted to bring the animals back to the mountains.

The New York Zoological Society had a zoo in Brooklyn, New York.  A small herd of buffalo lived at the zoo.  They lived in a small pasture.  The people in New York worked with Frank Rush.  They agreed to give some buffalo to the new wildlife refuge.  The buffalo had to ride the train all the way from New York to Oklahoma.

The train ride was a hard way to travel for the buffalo and the men riding with them.  Steam hoses broke.  Trains did not run on time.  Many times people were disappointed because the buffalo did not arrive on time.  But the crowds stayed strong all along the tracks from New York to Oklahoma.  Everyone wanted to see the buffalo train ride.  They wanted to see the buffalo return to the West.

Arrival day finally came.  At 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 16, 1907, the buffalo arrived in Cache, Oklahoma.  The depot overflowed with cowboys, settlers, ranchers, and Indians.  Comanche women arrived wrapped in bright Pendleton blankets.  Young girls and their mothers wore their best bonnets and hats.  Comanche Chief Quanah Parker arrived by wagon.  Thirty-three years earlier he had attacked Adobe Walls.  Now he waited to welcome the sacred animals home. 

This was a very important day to the Indians.  Comanche men peered inside the crates that held the buffalo.  None of the Indians had seen buffalo for 30 years. Tears streamed down their faces. 

Boys and young men gathered around the old warriors.  They listened to stories of the buffalo when they roamed the land freely. The elders told about the buffalo hunts long ago. The buffalo were unloaded from the train.  They were put on wagons.  The wagons lumbered across the prairie to the Wichita Mountains Game

Crowds of onlookers view buffalo in their new home (Provenance:  Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Indiahoma, Oklahoma)

Preserve. There they were sprayed with crude oil.  The oil helped protect the buffalo from the Texas fever tick.  The tick could destroy the buffalo again. 
 

Frank Rush (Provenance: Oklahoma Historical Society,  Archives and Manuscripts Division)

Frank Rush was the first manager of the new wildlife refuge.  He wrote in his diary:  "The buffalo are doing well.  First buffalo calf born October 30, 1907.  It was a bull calf." The bull calf was named Oklahoma in honor of statehood. The second calf, a heifer, was born on November 16, 1907.  The birth of little Oklahoma symbolized two things.  People now knew how important it is to take care of animals like the buffalo.  And the buffalo had returned!  Re-read the first page of this story. Page 2