Battle of the Washita

In this photo there is a trench on the other side of the fence behind the historic markers. This may very well be the location where the soldiers were buried. We base this assumption on the fact that the lone head stone marker in the left hand side of the photo stands alone from the other headstones in the cemetery. The lone headstone is of a child that died Christmas Eve in 1893. Her death was the first in the area that had been opened for homesteading in 1892. When they dug the hole for burial they came across human bones from a previous burial. Since there were no white men living in the area before 1892 it appears that these bones most likely were those of the soldiers who died at the Battle of the Washita. After the discovery of the bones all burials were done away from the site. Someone with ground penetrating radar machine needs to survey the trench to see what is underground in order to determine whether or not this is the actual burial site. Photo by Jack Beale Smith