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October 11, 2009
WOLF CREEK HERITAGE MUSEUM NOTES by Virginia Scott MUSEUM HAPPENINGS Happy Columbus Day! I am back from the North. Our trip to Cheyenne, WY. to present our museum to the Mountain Plains Museum Association was great. This is an annual conference similiar to the Texas Association of Museums. It is a regional association for the ten mountain states : Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, & Wyoming. It was educational to visit and hear from speakers from these states. Our panel sponsored by Texas Tech was on expanding educational experiences in your museums. The Lubbock Lake Landmark, National Ranching Heritage Center, and us (Wolf Creek Heritage Museum) presented our educational opportunities. It was an opportunity to educate the larger communities about the rich educational topics and interest that is in our smaller communities. We also discussed how education is more than programs as revealed in our publications, articles, columns, etc. I made sure our regional brochures were well distributed throughout the conference. The trip there and back was interesting with alot of beautiful landscapes. Unfortunately , very few museums were open since we traveled on Sunday and Monday. We did make it to two National Historic Fort Sites: Fort Laramie and Fort Bent. At Fort Bent they were having their largest encampment and we were able to listen to the reenactors play their roles of indians, soldiers, traders, buffalo hunters, wives in their kitchens and living rooms and children playing games. It was a cold but fun day. While I was off PRing, The Ladies kept the museum going and had visitors from South Texas and Ardmore , OK. Dorothy has ventured to the East Coast for a family wedding and we are anxiously awaiting her return with pictures of the east coast leaves. We will be open this weekend for the annual Fall Foliage. So venture out to see the beautiful fall leaves and stop in to see the new Exhibits. HISTORICAL MUSINGS Kiowa Chief Santana committed suicide on October 11, 1878 by jumping out his prison window. Born around 1820 in what is probably now Kansas or Oklahoma, Santana emerged as an orator at the Medicine Lodge Treaty council in October 1867, where he came to be known as the "Orator of the Plains, ". This title was probably in reference to his long winded speeches rather than the content of them. In 1871 Satanta and his fellow chiefs Satank and Big Tree were arrested for their part in the Warren wagon train raid. Satank was killed while trying to escape. The trial of Satanta and Big Tree at Jacksboro was a celebrated event, primarily because it marked the first time Indian Chiefs were forced to stand trial in a civil court. The jury convicted the two men and sentenced them to hang, but Texas governor E.J. Davis commuted their sentences to life imprisonment. Satanta was paroled in 1873, but was re-arrested for his role in the attack on Lyman's wagon train in Palo Duro Canyon and in the second battle of Adobe Walls. He was one of the main Chiefs in the Red River Wars 1874-75. He was imprisoned in the Texas penitentiary in Huntsville until 1878, when, demoralized over the prospect of spending the rest of his life in confinement, he took his own life. (source: Handbook of Texas Online day by day, www.tshaonline.org ) |
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