History of Hutchinson County, Texas: 104 Years, 1876-1980 Page: 11 of 526

A Brief History of Hutchinson
County, Texas
By
John T. White

Hutchinson County, Texas, is located almost in the
exact geographical center of the United States.
Before the coming of the white man, a vast grass
covered, treeless land, where great herds of buffalo
roamed freely and the apartment building Indians,
now found chiefly in New Mexico, built their condominiums
along the banks of the Canadian River. At an
unusually large span of the river, to the North, one
such settlement existed. Like most of its kind, the site
was located well above the river bottom, with timber
and game in profusion, in sharp contrast with the flat
plains to the North and South of the river breaks. The
Pueblo type culture apparently used the great river
as a highway. Along the Canadian was an abundance
of timber, game, water and other necessities
of life for the travelers.
EARLY HISTORY
Researchers have come to designate the earliest
known "civilized" inhabitants of Hutchinson County
as the "Antelope Creek" Culture. Some historians,
anthropologists and other writers have speculated
that the culture for some reason or another disappeared
in the middle of the fifteenth century
at
least along the Canadian River of the Panhandle.
Most of this speculation is built upon the lack of mention
of such culture in the area by the Coronado
Expedition which traversed Hutchinson County in
mid-1541. Most historians, however, agree that
Coronado travelled out of the Palo Duro Canyon by
the "needle," that is 10 East of due North. Based
upon this, and the finding by the present writer of
artifacts verified as belonging to the period and the
expedition, together with measurements, it appears
that Coronado would have passed over the site of a
recently excavated ruin of the Antelope Creek Culture.
Coronado also had outriders whose distance
from the main column would have enabled him to
explore an area several miles in width as he moved
North.
The records of the Coronado Expedition are
detailed and exact. It is my belief that the remains of
such a culture could not have been so thoroughly
extinguished in a period of roughly 100 years so as
to have escaped any notice whatsoever by the Coronado
troop. Since, therefore, Coronado did not note
any signs of this civilization in Hutchinson County, it
probably disappeared several hundred years prior to
the date generally given by these writers and before
his crossing of the County.
At any rate, the pre-history of the County, as fascinating
as it is, must be sacrificed here for the sake of
a larger overview of the entire history of the county
for the benefit of the general reader.
EARLY EXPEDITIONS
Coronado was only the first of several expeditions
through Hutchinson County. Juan de Onate crossed
in 1601 and later Pedro Vial in 1792. Vial seems to
have penetrated the present boundary of Hutchinson
County on the Eastern side and possibly camped on
the present site of Borger before returning to Santa
Fe. There were, of course, other expeditions and
incursions into the area of Hutchinson County by the
Spanish, but by the early part of the ninteenth century,
the Panhandle and the County had begun to be
"Americanized."
After the Texas War of Independence Josiah
Gregg, in 1840, and Captain R.B. Marcy in 1849
made explorations which traversed the County. It
seems that Coronado, Gregg and Marcy all had one
thing in common
their trails crossed, in different
eras, at the present site of Borger.
By the late 1840s William Bent, with his partner,
Ceran St. Vrain, from their jumping off place in Colorado,
at the site of the fort bearing Bent's name at La
Junta, established Fort Adobe for trade. It was
located in the northeastern portion of the present day
county and is now located on the Turkey Track
Ranch.
Between 1849 and 1864, Hutchinson County lay
quietly between the Texas-Mexican culture to the
south and the immigrant-soldier white civilization to
the north, with the beginnings of the great Indian
wars, in contrast to the political and civil upheavals in
the East. The tranquil time was to end as a result of
political actions to the North, and artful negotiations
which had taken place between the United States
and the Republic of Texas, when Texas had sued for