Museum and Quanah Parker Exhibit
Angela Martin is Curator of the Texas Heritage and Railroad Museum located in Temple, Texas. She will provide an overview of the museum and share information about their current exhibit featuring Quanah Parker. Those of you who studied Texas History in the seventh grade may remember studying about Mr. Parker and that Quanah, Texas is the county seat of Hardeman County.
Quanah Parker was was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as a nine-year-old child and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe.Quanah Parker was never elected chief by his people but was appointed by the federal government as principal chief of the entire Comanche Nation. He became a primary emissary of southwest indigenous Americans to the United States legislature. In civilian life, he gained wealth as a rancher, settling near Cache, Oklahoma.