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PALO DURO CANYON
PALO DURO CANYON. Palo Duro Canyon is the most spectacular and scenic landscape feature in the Panhandle of Texas. The Spanish name Palo Duro means "hardwood" and refers to the hardwood shrubs and trees found in the canyon. Palo Duro Canyon was carved into the eastern Caprock escarpment of the High Plains during the past ninety million years by the headwaters of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River and by attendant weathering. The head of the canyon lies fifteen miles southeast of Amarillo in Randall County, and the canyon extends sixty miles southeast through Armstrong County and into Briscoe County. It reaches depths of 800 feet from rim to floor (approximately 3,500 feet to 2,400 feet above sea level) and average widths of more than six miles. The steep sides of Palo Duro Canyon consist of bright, banded layers of orange, red, brown, yellow, grey, maroon, and white rocks that represent four different geologic periods and a time span of more than 240 million years. Fossils of long-extinct animals and plants have been found embedded in the rock layers. Adding to the canyon's scenic grandeur are numerous pinnacles, buttes, and mesas, each protected by a cap of erosion-resistant sandstone or other rock. The natural vegetation of the canyon consists of a variety of grasses and other xerophytic vegetation such as prickly pear, yucca, mesquite, and juniper. Cottonwood, willow, and salt cedar grow along the banks of Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River.
Because of the availability of wood, water, game, edible wild plants, raw materials for weapons and tools, and shelter from harsh winter winds, Palo Duro Canyon was a favorite camp site for both prehistoric peoples and later Indian tribes. The first known inhabitants, who date from the period between 10,000 and 5,000 B.C. were big-game hunters of now-extinct giant bison and mammoths. Archeologists have found projectile points, stone tools, mortar holes, paintings, carvings, and other artifacts of these and later prehistoric people at numerous sites throughout the canyon.
The first Europeans to see Palo Duro Canyon were probably the members of the Coronado expedition, who may have camped and rested there in the late spring of 1541 while searching for Quivira and the treasures it reputedly contained. The region was occupied at that time by bands of pre-horse-culture Apache Indians who depended heavily on buffalo for food, clothing, and shelter. In the eighteenth century, after the Plains Indians had acquired horses, the canyon became a major campground of the Comanches and Kiowas. Traders from New Mexico called Comancheros frequently came to Palo Duro to trade with the Indians. The first Anglo-Americans to explore Palo Duro Canyon were members of Capt. Randolph B. Marcy's 1852 expedition in search of the sources of the Red River. The Comanches and their allies continued to camp there until 1874, when United States Cavalry troops under Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie made a surprise dawn attack on a large encampment of Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes, forcing them to return to their reservations in Indian Territory. In 1876 a group of army engineers, teamsters, and civilian draftsman was in the area to explore the headwaters of the Red River and conduct a topographic and scientific survey. Their report was the most detailed report compiled up to that time on the central Panhandle region, including Palo Duro Canyon. That same year, Charles Goodnight drove a herd of cattle into Palo Duro Canyon to begin the first commercial ranch in the Panhandle, the JA.
Although the canyon remained the domain of the cattlemen for the next half century, it also became a popular picnicking and camping place for residents in the surrounding area. In 1933 the state of Texas purchased land in the upper canyon to establish Palo Duro Canyon State Scenic Park. Initial improvements, including construction of a road to the floor of the canyon, were made by the Civilian Conservation Corps under the direction of the National Park Service. Today the park, which includes more than 15,000 acres, annually receives over half a million visitors. A summer musical pageant, Texas, is presented annually in the outdoor amphitheater. The lower part of the canyon remains private ranchland.
Duane F. Guy, ed., The Story of Palo Duro Canyon (Canyon, Texas: Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1979). William H. Matthews III, The Geologic Story of Palo Duro Canyon (Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, 1969). Panhandle-Plains Historical Review, 1978. Frederick W. Rathjen, The Texas Panhandle Frontier (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, William Conroy, "PALO DURO CANYON," accessed January 21, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rkp04.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on July 26, 2016. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.