Blanco Canyon, located in Crosby and Floyd Counties of Texas, cuts through 34 miles of the vast plains of the eastern Llano Estacado. In 1871, the picturesque canyon was the site of an early battle between the US Army and Native American warriors led by Quanah Parker.
Along with other Native American tribes, a band of Quahada Comanches refused federal demands to surrender and relocate to Oklahoma reservations. In September of 1871, an expedition under the command of Colonel Ranald Mackenzie left Fort Richardson near Jacksboro to force the Comanches on to reservations. He organized about 600 men of the 4th US Cavalry and 11th Infantry and a group of Tonkawa scouts and headed toward the unknown—Comancheria.
Among Mackenzie’s officers was Captain Robert Goldwaithe Carter, who described the landscape as, “a vast, almost illimitable expanse of prairie . . . not a bush or tree, a twig or stone, not an object of any kind or a living thing was in sight. It stretched out before us—one uninterrupted plain, only to be compared to the ocean in its vastness.” Upon reaching Blanco Canyon, Carter called the area an “Indian paradise,” where Comanches could shelter safely along spring-fed streams that attracted game animals.