But the world that had existed before Palo Duro Canyon was gone.

The Red River As Context

Palo Duro Canyon sits in the drainage of the Red River — specifically the Prairie Dog Town Fork, which is the major headwater branch.

The Red River itself, which forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma, was the geographic center of the Southern Plains conflict through the 1860s and 1870s.

The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 had been negotiated along the Medicine Lodge Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River in Kansas, but the territory it affected was primarily the Red River drainage in Texas and Indian Territory.

The reservation at Fort Sill was in the Red River watershed.