The canyon is still mostly invisible from the surrounding plains until you are at its edge.

The Texas Historical Commission marker stands at the end of Park Road 5, near the Mesquite Camp Area, noting the battle in the language that official Texas historical recognition uses: significant, important, decisive.

What the marker does not fully convey — what no roadside marker can fully convey — is the human dimensions of what happened there: the families who fled across the canyon floor in the September dawn, the warriors on the canyon walls buying minutes for those families, the sound of burning lodges, the horses being driven south and then shot.

The canyon holds the record of those events in its geology and its silence, as all places hold the records of what happened in them.