[From J. Marvin Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine, August, 1935]

Indians mounted their horses on the right side as contrasted with the white man's custom. They could ride their ponies as civilized man never learned to do, performing almost unbelievable feats—such, for instance, as a rider throwing himself on an animal 's side and dashing madly around with only a small portion of a leg or arm observable from the opposite side. Left side mounting came down to us through the centuries and started because "in days of old when men were bold" knights wore their swords on the left side and it was therefore easier to mount a horse from that position.

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June was a month with the Indians for great undertakings. Once a year, at the time of the new moon in June, Comanche Indians met with their head chiefs on the Salt Fork of the Colorado river, where lakes of salt water enabled them to gather any quantity of salt they wished. At this gathering they made their plans and arranged their hunting territory for the next year. The chiefs, as best suited their needs, agreed upon continuance of, or plotted to repudiate, their treaties with Mexicans or white people, usually repudiated them. Indians without tribal responsibilities played games, raced their horses, and held sham battles; boys wrestled, ran foot races, and indulged in other pastimes. The old men gossiped about the lack of warrior qualities in bucks, about the ways in which young women decorated themselves, and other incidents of the tribe's affairs; the squaws seldom taking part in the gossip, due to the fact most likely that the squaws had all of the work to do.

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Many people believe the Comanches and Apaches of the frontier made and used flint arrowheads, spearheads, knives, axes, hammers and tomahawks, but such is not the case. These flint artifacts belong to a very remote period—the stone age. We have heard people set up the claim that the Indian made the flint arrowheads by heating a pieces of flint and dropping cold water on it to shape it to their needs. This is a mistake, and cannot be easily done. Indians did fine work in arrowheads, large flint stones being broken into pieces, and then the pieces were shaped with the help of stone tools. By pressing bone against flint the workers were able to break away bits of stone until they obtained the shape desired. Rib-bones of deer and buffalo were used as a sort of chisel in arrow-making. The bones were cut to size and given a sharp edge or point. Sometimes the tip of a deer antler was used instead of bone. The method of making flint arrowheads was a lost art among the Indians when the white people came to West Texas; they were using spikes made of hoop-iron, copper, and bone. The reason but few of the iron arrow spikes are found now is because they have rusted away. We have heard of only one instance of a white man being shot with a flint arrowhead by an Indian, and this is said to have happened on the Medina river in Medina county, sometime in the late 1860's. It is not likely that the Indian who used that flint spike made it himself; we rather think that he picked up a good specimen which had been used by a prehistoric Indian and fitted it to a shaft, probably having run out of arrows of his own making.

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The gourd was a very handy vegetable that grew on the frontier of Texas. Early settlers used them for various purposes, and to good advantage. When cut in the proper way they served as dippers, water jugs, spoons and dishes. My mother used a large gourd in which to keep sugar, another in which to keep lard, and still another in which to keep her coffee. The long-necked gourd made an ideal dipper. Ask any old timer how he would like to have a gourd full of cold spring water, and he'll tell you it is the most refreshing drink in the world. The early Texas Rangers and Minute Men, while out on their scouts after Indians, carried water gourds. a dumb-bell shaped affair, tied to the horn of their saddles. The method of cleaning out these gourds in preparing them for use, was to fill them with water, and put in a lot of sugar, letting them soak overnight, and then the next morning pour the water out. After drying for a few hours the gourd would be placed on a red ant hill, and the ants would soon remove all of the fibrous growth inside for the sugar that remained. It would then be ready for use, the "gourd taste" having entirely disappeared. We have in Frontier Times Museum in Bandera several of these gourd dippers and water bottles, some of which were used by early settlers on the frontier, one of them being a "coffee gourd" used in 1840, and all of them are still in good condition. For lasting qualities they were better than the metal or glass vessels.

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I have often been asked where and when the last Indian raid was made in Texas. The last atrocity committed by Indians in this state occurred in 1883, in what is now Real county, when a Mrs. McLauren and a little boy were killed by either Kickapoo or Lipan Indians who came in from Mexico.

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LaSalle landed in Texas in 1685. He was murdered by one of his own men near the Neches river March 20, 1687. A Spanish settlement under DeLeon was made in Texas in 1889. He established the mission of San Francisco at the mouth of the Lavaca river, where LaSalle had previously built the Fort St. Louis.

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San Antonio, Goliad and Nacogdoches, the oldest towns in Texas, were founded about 1717.

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More people are being killed annually by automobiles in Texas at the present time than were killed by Indians in the early days. And yet we claim to be civilized. Wild camels once roamed the hills of Bandera and Kerr counties in Texas. These camels were strays from the old camel post established at Camp Verde in 1856 by the government for the purpose of transporting provisions, supplies and dispatches to the army posts along the border through Texas, New Mexico, and to Fort Yuma, California. The idea to use camels was conceived by Jefferson Davis when he was Secretary of War. Congress appropriated $30,000 with which to buy the camels in Egypt. During the war between the States Camp Verde was captured by the Confederates, who cared for camels until the war was over, and later the United States disposed of the animals at $9 to $14 per head.

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Texas has a history distinctively its own, apart from that of the United States, and no other State in the Union has been of such momentous consequence in the history of the United States. The flags of eight nations have flown over our fair Texas land, representing six different countries: Spain, France, Spain again, then Mexico, Texas, the United States, the Southern Confederacy, and again the United States. Every boy and girl in our public schools should be taught. the romantic history of this State.

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Fort Clark, near Brackettville, Texas, was established in 1852, and has been continuously occupied by troops to protect the Mexican border. It was originally called Fort Riley, in honor of Colonel Riley, distinguished in the Mexican War; but later the name was changed to Fort Clark, in honor of Major John B. Clark, First United States Infantry, who died of wounds in Mexico in 1847.

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We have often been asked to name the Indian tribes which roamed over Texas in the early days. Between 1700 and 1875 more than forty different tribes made their homes in Texas. When the Spanish missions were founded in the latter part of the seventeenth century the greater portion of the present Texas was held by three large Indian groups. In East Texas and as far north as Red River were the Caddoes and a number of related tribes, the Nacogdoches, Wacoes, Keechis, Ayish, Anadarkoes, Wichitas, Adaes, and Tejas. The Caddo tribes dwindled rapidly, some by pestilence, some removed northward and settled on reservations, and there are but few left today of the once powerful Caddoan stock. Other tribes which dwelt in Texas were the Apaches, Lipan, Apaches, Comanches, Karankawas, Coahuiltican, Tonkawas, Pueblos, Cherokees, Alabamas, Coushattis, Seminoles, Delawares, Kickapoos, Arapahoes, Kiowas, and other branches. The settlers on the Western Texas frontier suffered much at the hands of the Apache, Lipan, Comanche, Kiowa and Kickapoo Indians up to 1878.

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Where was the first capital of Texas located' This is largely a matter of definition and historical interpretation. According to some writers, Mexico City was the first capital be her claim to Texas; later Monclova, Mexico, became a provincial capital of Texas; then Los Adaes, near the line of Louisiana and Texas, became the capital of Texas; then when Louisiana was ceded to Spain by the French in 1762, San Antonio, Texas, became the capital and remained so until 1824, when Mexico became independent of Spain and Texas was united with Coahuila, and Saltillo became the capital. In 1833 the government for the State of Coahuila and Texas was removed to Monclova. The Texas revolution came on in 1835, and the first provisional government of Texas was organized with headquarters at San Felipe de Austin. In March, 1836, Texas adopted a declaration of independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, but dissolved before the advance of Santa Anna's troops, and Harrisburg, on Buffalo Bayou, was the temporary capital. Being forced to move again by the advance of Santa Anna's troops, the capital was moved to Galveston, and later to Velasco. In October, 1836, the first permanent government of the Republic of Texas went into operation at Columbia. On December 15, 1836, President Houston ordered the seat of government removed to the new town of Houston, which had been selected by Congress as the temporary capital, where it remained from 1837 until the convening of Congress in 1840. A Capital Commission was created by a bill passed by Congress and approved by President Lamar, and this commission selected Waterloo, on the east bank of the Colorado, as the permanent capital, and the selection was confirmed by the Texas Congress January 19, 1840, the place being named Austin. In March 1842 President Houston, fearing a Mexican attack on the new capital, ordered the return of the archives to Houston for security, which brought about the "Archives War." The following September the capital was moved to Washington-on-the-Brazos by executive order, and in 1845 the seat of government was moved back to Austin, where it has since remained.

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How big is Texas? Well, she's a whopper. She covers 265,89 square miles, of which 262,392 square miles is land area. It is considerably further from Texarkana, on the east, across the state to El Paso, on the west, than it is from Texarkana to Chicago, Illinois.