Historical Marker #799

On the drive from Austin to Big Bend National Park in the mountainous desert of West Texas last week, a long drive we happily undertook without touching any interstates, we stopped at a historical marker in Uvalde. We had driven past many such markers on our journey, and would pass many more on the way. My beautiful traveling companion had not really noticed them before, so we decided to stop at one and take a look. I find them fascinating, because there are so many along the roadsides of Texas, and I wonder how much money is spent making and installing them and the signs that announce them: "Historical Marker, 1 mile, on the right." Whose job is it to write the stories that adorn them? Are they cataloged somewhere? (Yes, they are!) For whom, and at whose behest, are such things created? How many visitors does a roadside historical marker next to a row of mailboxes in Uvalde, Texas get in a year, anyway?

So we stopped and took our picture.

The story on this particular marker commemorates the "Chalk Bluff Indian Massacre," which occurred, according to the marker, about a mile west in what is now Chalk Bluff Park. The marker reads as follows:

Here on May 29, 1861, two of southwest Texas' most feared Indian fighters were ambushed by a band of 20 hostile Indians. Henry Robinson -- tall and red-bearded -- was so well known to the tribes that they had painted his picture on a rock near the Llano River. He and his companion Henry Adams (also his daughter's fiance) were in route to Camp Wood when the attack came. The Indians, after they had killed the two men, took both their scalps and Robinson's beard, too; they then attacked Robinson's home, but his family fought them off successfully. 1970

I love that the death of these two men is characterized as a massacre. And I love that they took not only the scalps, but also the red beard. I hope that enough time has gone by that my enjoyment of this event is not insensitive to the victims' families.

I also quite enjoy that, predictably, the story is more than a little biased toward the "feared Indian fighters" rather than the "hostile Indians" who would, I'm sure, tell the story differently.

Now I'm determined to stop and read more of these odd little roadside plaques. They have a kind of charm to them in the internet age. Even though Google led me to several accounts of brave Henry Robinson, I wouldn't have known to search for them had we not stopped along the way for the pure curiosity of it. What a joyful thing to do, to stop and look for no particular reason. I think I shall make a habit of it. Join me, won't you?