Mount Bonnell's American Indian Trail

At Austin’s founding, historically recorded American Indian tribes included Apache, Comanche, Tonkawa and Waco (a branch of the Wichita) to name a few. The Tonkawa were probably the oldest residents of the area, but the dominant tribe was the Comanche.

Gelo's "Comanche Land and Ever Has Been": A Native Geography of the Nineteenth-Century Comancheria provides insight into the prominence high ground -- peaks, mesas -- played in Comanche history: places of spirituality; aids to navigation; places from which to see long distances, and be seen (signalling).

Central Texas' band of Comanche were the Penateka with a homeland near the headwaters of the Colorado River. In T.R. Fehrenbach's Comanches: The Destruction of a People he comments that at Austin's founding, while surveyors and engineers worked to construct the new Capital of Texas, curious parties of Penateka "sat on their ponies on the surrounding limestone bluffs above the river, watching" (p.315). One spot from which they surely observed was Mount Bonnell. If you have been to the top of Mount Bonnell you know it provides excellent views in all direction, up and down the Colorado River, and into Austin. The trail into Austin across Mount Bonnell would have provided one a chance to observe what was going on in Austin before committing to entry.

In this blog I pull together primary and secondary sources describing an American Indian trail that passed over or around Mount Bonnell. While many accounts from early Austin usually referred generically to "Indians", use of a trail at Mount Bonnell would have especially been used by those traveling into and out of Austin along the Colorado, such as the Penateka Comanche.

Note: a good portion of the this blog is based on a write-up I did for Wikipedia about Mount Bonnell, hence the similarity!

 

Bigfoot Wallace: "...the cave was right on the old Indian trail leading down to Austin..."

A historical marker was placed near Mount Bonnell in 1969 by State Historical Survey Committee. A snippet from the marker reads:

Rising 775 feet above sea level, this limestone height was named for George W. Bonnell, who came to Texas with others to fight for Texas independence, 1836. ... Frontiersman W.A.A. "Bigfoot" Wallace killed an Indian he met face to face while crossing a narrow ledge 50 feet above river, 1839. He also took refuge in a Mount Bonnell cave to recover from "flux", but was missing so long his sweetheart eloped.

Years after Bigfoot Wallace's refuge in the cave on Mount Bonnell, when asked why he had chosen the cave as a refuge, he responded "Well ... the cave was right on the old Indian trail leading down to Austin, and I thought I would be able to keep my hand in by 'upping' one now and then; and besides, the cave was in the best hunting ground for bear in all this country..."

Julia Lee Sinks: "Our home was on the beaten track of the Indians into town from the pass of Mount Bonnell."

Julia Lee Sinks, author and historian, was an early settler to Austin, arriving in the spring of 1840. Before meeting and marrying George Sinks, chief clerk of the Post Office Department during the Republic years, she lived on West Pecan, present day 6th street, and later wrote “Our home was on the beaten track of the Indians into town from the pass of Mount Bonnell. The knolls beyond the quarry branch were interspersed with timber, and sometimes though not often, we would see galloping past the open spaces beyond the blanketed Indian. The path along the quarry branch, secluded as it was, became their main inlet to the town. It was a sheltered road, never traveled at night by whites, so the Indians claimed right of way, and all full moons brought moccasin tracks in abundance”.

Abduction of the Simpson Children

If Mount Bonnell was on an Indian trail into Austin, it was also a trail out, as illustrated in another story included in Wilbarger’s Indian Depredations of Texas. In 1844 (Wilbarger cites 1842, but see notes below), a Mrs. Simpson living on that very same street as Julia Lee Sinks, West Pecan, about three blocks west of Congress, had two children – a daughter 14, a son 12—abducted by Indians while the children were in the adjacent “valley” (Shoal Creek). Wilbarger says that at that time there were no houses there. The Indians “seized the children, mounted their horses and made off for the mountains .. going in the direction of Mt. Bonnell”. A posse was raised and gave pursuit. Wilbarger then says “At one time the citizens came within sight of the redskins just before reaching Mt. Bonnell, but the Indians, after arriving at the place, passed on just beyond to the top of the mountain, which being rocky, the citizens lost the trail and were never able to find where the savages went down the mountain”. The Simpson girl was killed, but the boy survived and was later “traded off to some Indian traders, who returned him to his mother”. It is because the boy survived and was returned home that we know what happened after the posse lost the trail of the Indians on Mount Bonnell. From Mt. Bonnell they stopped at Spicewood Springs, “which is situated in the edge of the mountains”. This is where the Simpson girl was killed. Spicewood Springs is located about 5 miles north of Mount Bonnell, near the present day intersection of MoPac Expressway and Spicewood Springs Road.

This incident, involving Mount Bonnell as the route by which the Indians made good their getaway, was understandably one of the defining moments in the relationship between the citizens of the young city of Austin and the American Indians that still claimed the area as their own. This story was told and retold in all the Texas history classics of the late 1800s: Indian Depredations of Texas; Recollections of Early Texas; Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas; Texas Indians Papers. The story still captures the imagination of modern Texas historians, retold in recent publications such A Fate Worse than Death, and Austin resident historian Dr. Jeff Kerr’s The Republic of Austin.  Some sources cited the Indians as being Waco, but a good case has been made in A Fate Worse Than Death the Indians were Comanche, and probably a rogue party at odds with other bands intent on trying to achieve peace with Texans.

Janet Long Fish's Comanche Trail; tie to Mount Bonnell Trail and Beyond to Comanche Peak

The dominant tribe at Austin's founding were the Comanche. Janet Long Fish, daughter of Walter E. Long, in 1952 pioneered work on a walking trail (today’s Shoal Creek Greenbelt Hike and Bike Trail) along what she called the “old Comanche Trail” that ran from the shoals in the Colorado River up along Shoal Creek to 34th Street where it crossed the creek and continued west and north into the hills. 34th Street at Shoal Creek Greenbelt is historically significant in that it is the location of Seiders Spring, a spot known to have been visited by Indians in early Austin. West of Seiders Springs 34th turns into 35th street and is the old road to Mount Bonnell. In 2000 Janet Long Fish was interviewed about the general history of Bull Creek in which she elaborated on the connection between the Shoal Creek "Comanche Trail", Mount Bonnell, and Bull Creek:

“The Shoal Creek Trail tied into the Bull Creek setup. And the Shoal Creek Trail—it’s hard to look at the river now because the lake is covering a lot of what was bottom land, and we forget that you could come right below Mount Bonnell. And this is what the Indians did, they came up Shoal Creek, and they turned left at Thirty-fifth Street. They went below Mount Bonnell, and then they went below Mount Bonnell and on up. Now, how far up Bull Creek they went, I don’t know. I know the Comanche Trail out by Lake Travis is a continuation of the Shoal Creek Trail.”

The “Comanche Trail out by Lake Travis” mentioned in the interview is the road today that runs by the Oasis Restaurant, next to Comanche Peak, the only natural geographic place in Travis County named after an American Indian tribe. It sits on the norther edge of the Bull Creek watershed. 

That Bull Creek was on a Comanche trail from Mount Bonnell to Comanche Peak (essentially the route of today's Mount Bonnell Road / FM 2222) jives with oral traditions of some early settlers. Will Preece, wife Elizabeth Gideon, and sons Richard Lincoln Preece (also known as Dick Preece) and Will Jr., were early settlers to the Bull Creek area during the days of the Republic of Texas. Both Dick Preece and Will Jr. served as Texas Rangers before the Civil War. Preece family history records their cemetery along West Bull Creek, just off today's FM 2222, was the "site of a Comanche hunting ground". In his article, “My Grandfather, Dick Preece”, Harold Preece, grandson of Dick Preece, says “A few miles from the Preece ranch lay the southern terminus of the bloody Comanche Trail” and describes his grandfather's days with the Texas Rangers before the Civil War combating the Comanche in Texas.

Another reference to Indian activity around Bull Creek. In 1936, the Texas Centennial, Travis County published The Defender 1936: Travis County Rural Schools. One of the schools described was the old Bull Creek School later renamed Pleasant Valley School. That school was located on what was then called Bull Creek Road, today's FM 2222, where it today intersects Loop 360. In describing the history of the school: “The first school at Pleasant Valley was established sixty-nine years ago [1867]. It was a private school in a log house on the old Walden place. This was during the time when Indians were prevalent.."

The Day the Comanches Returned

I'll conclude with a recent historic event between Austin and the Comanche. The Comanche Nation Tribal Complex is based near Lawton, OK; their Elder Council makes trips to locations their ancestors used to call home as a way to reconnect with their past. A reconnecting with Austin was long overdue, so April 26th 2017 30+ members of the Elder Council traveled to Austin, and I had the honor of hosting that visit. One of our stops was atop Mount Bonnell. You can read more about the overall trip in this blog:

http://txcompost.blogspot.com/2017/05/comanche-nation-elder-council-visit-to.html

But I'll conclude this post with a video one of the elders, Ron Parker, descendant of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, made while we were atop Mount Bonnell. We gathered on the concrete picnic table near the top to get a wonderful view of downtown Austin, and the Colorado, just as their ancestors would have done 178 years ago:

https://youtu.be/1AvFNuTvTQU

Notes and References

Fehrenbach, T.R.,  Comanches: The Destruction of a People, 1974.

Gelo, Daniel. "Comanche Land and Ever Has Been": A Native Geography of the Nineteenth-Century Comancheria.  The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000.

Historic Marker Database listing for Mount Bonnell marker, see https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=20136

Wilbarger, J.W. (1889). Indian Depredations in Texas. Austin, TX: Hutchings Print House. p. 665

Julia Lee Sinks. This story is available in the Julia Lee Sinks Papers, 1817, [ca. 1840]-1904, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin. The story was also published in an article by Julia Lee Sinks, "Early Days in Texas". The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 54, No. 322, Ed. 1 Sunday, February 9, 1896, p.18. A note of clarification: the "Big Foot" discussed in this article was an Indian of some legend, not Bigfoot Wallace. Online access to the The Galveston Daily News article available through The Portal to Texas History at http://bit.ly/2yRcwsQ

The Death of Jane Simpson at Spicewood Springs. Years and names of the children vary by source. The date was almost certainly 1844 given Congress’ documented resolution to appropriate a ransom. See http://txcompost.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-death-of-jane-simpson-at-spicewood.html 

Cash, Elizabeth A.  and Suzanne B. Deaderick, Austin's Pemberton Heights (Images of America), 2012. Discusses Janet Long Fish’s work in preserving the “Comanche Trail”, today’s Shoal Creek Greenbelt Trail.

Preece, Harold (1964). "My Grandfather, Dick Preece". Real West. VII (38): 22. Story of Richard Lincoln Preece, AKA Dick Preece, as a Republic era Texas Ranger fighting Comanches. I've donated a copy of this magazine to the Briscoe Center for American History as part of their "Richard Lincoln Preece Papers, 1859-1919".
 
Michno, Gregory and Susan Michno, A Fate Worse than Death: Indian Captivities in the West, 1830-1885, Caxton Press, 2007

Janet Long Fish, Oral History Transcript. Interview by Thad Sitton, July 20, 2000. Available at Austin History Center.

The Defender 1936: Travis County Rural Schools, published 1936. A copy is available at the Austin History Center.