Phantom Horses of Palo Duro

Palo Duro Canyon

In late summer of 1874, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa warriors left their reservations to hunt and bring back food for their women and children who stayed behind on their reservations. They made their winter camp within the Palo Duro Canyon in the Panhandle of Texas. There they began stockpiling the food and supplies they had managed to gather. 

General Ronald MacKenzie and a large number of troops from of the 4th U.S. Cavalry using paid Tonkawa scouts had orders to force the renegade Indians back to the reservations in Indian Territory. After several skirmishes with small parties of Comanches which resulted in about 15 Indian dead, MacKenzie's scouts were able to track the larger band to Palo Duro. From the rim, they could see the camps of the Indians spread in groups along the canyon floor.

After finding passable trails down into the canyon, early on the morning of September 28, MacKenzie's forces attempted to make a surprise attack, but a Comanche lookout spotted the soldiers and fired a warning shot before he was killed. The alerted Indians were able to flee from the charging troops by climbing up the steep canyon walls, but only a few of them managed to make it out on one of their horses. Many of them turned and fired on the soldiers from the canyon rim, but only 1 soldier was killed and 1 wounded. In the one sided fight, between 50 and 60 Indians were killed and the troops and their scouts captured all of the Indian's supplies and almost 2,000 horses.

Following MacKenzie's orders, all of the Indian lodges were pulled down, the hides were slashed and the lodge poles were broken and all of the food and other supplies were destroyed. After giving 30 of the captured ponies to the lead Tonkawa scout and 300 more to be divided among the rest of the scouts as a bonus, the remaining horses, about 1,400, were herded up to the plains above the canyon and slaughtered. After the buzzards and other wildlife ate the flesh, the huge pile of sun-bleached bones served as a trail marker for many years. With their horses, tepees, supplies and food gone, most of the Indians who escaped were forced to return to the reservation.

Rim of Palo Duro Canyon

A short time later, a party of 3 men came into Fort Concho and told of hearing a great herd of phantom horses stampeding along the rim of the canyon where they made camp one night. They were accused of telling a wildly imaginative story, but over the years, more people began reporting the same tale. 

On certain bright moonlit nights, it begins with a distant noise. As it gets nearer and swells in volume, it becomes clearly identifiable as the thunder of hundreds and hundreds of horse hooves. Then the specters appear - beautiful, ghostly pinto horses galloping at full speed along the canyon rim. Within a few seconds, the translucent horses and the noise abruptly vanish leaving nothing but a chilling silence. 

The large pile of bones are gone and few of the witnesses know of the long ago battle, but they have just seen the ghosts of horses massacred by soldiers in their effort to disable the Plains Indian tribes, horses destined to forever run where they were slain along the rim of Palo Duro Canyon.