Displacement & Tenure
Cession 510: Treaty with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache (Medicine Lodge Creek, 1867); Cession 485: Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache (Jerome Agreement, 1892, ratified 1900); Congress carved 61,500 acres directly out of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation as the Wichita Forest Reserve on July 4, 1901; the 5,723-acre wilderness was designated under the Wilderness Act of 1964; the broader 8,570-acre Wichita Mountains Wilderness designated by Congress in 1970.
Shadow History
The Wichita Mountains formed the core of Comancheria; after the Red River War of 1874-75, in which Colonel Ranald Mackenzie destroyed the last major Comanche winter camp at Palo Duro Canyon (September 28, 1874) and slaughtered approximately 1,400 horses, all surviving Comanche bands were confined to the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation surrounding Fort Sill; Quanah Parker's band, among the last holdouts, surrendered June 2, 1875; 74 men identified as war leaders were imprisoned at Fort Marion, Florida; the Jerome Agreement (negotiated 1892, ratified June 6, 1900) extracted approximately 2.5 million acres of KCA surplus lands over sustained Kiowa opposition; on July 4, 1901 -- the same day President McKinley proclaimed the KCA surplus land lottery open -- McKinley issued Proclamation 459 establishing the 57,120-acre Wichita Forest Reserve on those ceded lands, making the conservation of these mountains directly contingent on the dispossession of the Comanche and Kiowa. Charon's Garden Wilderness Area was established by Public Law 91-504 (October 23, 1970), making it one of the first wilderness areas designated within a National Wildlife Refuge under the FWS system; a companion North Mountain Unit was designated simultaneously but carries heavily restricted public access.
