Saturday, September 12, 2020 is the second annual Quanah Parker Day in Texas. This year, a statewide Virtual Celebration is being streamed on QuanahParkerDay.com website all day Saturday, September 12, honoring the life of the iconic Comanche leader Quanah Parker. He led the last band of Comanches from their nomadic way of life as hunters to settle in a specific place and “learn the white man’s way,”1 thus opening the vast region of Comancheria that had been dominated by the Comanches for more than a century to a flood of white settlers.
“During one of the greatest social and cultural shifts in American history, Quanah Parker served the Comanche people first as a warrior and then as a statesman, helping them retain their identity while adapting to a different way of life, and he stands as a pivotal figure in the history of the Lone Star State.”2
Ardith Parker Leming, great-granddaughter of Quanah, and Scott Nicholson, Chairman of the Parker Family Reunion in Texas, jointly announced the Virtual Celebration. “We will begin the Virtual Celebration at Cynthia Ann Parker’s original gravesite in Anderson County, Texas, where she died shortly after 1870 (the exact date is unknown),” said Scott Nicholson. Ardith Parker Leming added, “The Celebration will continue from the current gravesite of Cynthia Ann and Quanah at Chief’s Knoll on Fort Sill Military Reservation, Lawton, OK. Members of the Comanche Indian Veterans Association (CIVA) will post the colors and descendants of Quanah and Cynthia Ann will speak.” Bob Saul of My Comancheria Institute will host the Virtual Celebration with an overarching historical narrative of Cynthia Ann and Quanah.
Last year the Official Delegation of the Comanche Nation joined the inaugural celebration of Quanah Parker Day in Quitaque, Texas, and at nearby Caprock Canyons State Park. The Comanche Nation considers the area of Quitaque, the park landscape, and the Texas State Bison Herd a special part of their heritage and culture. That inaugural celebration was hosted by My Comancheria Institute, a five-state educational nonprofit which works with local museums and historical groups to educate all ages about the intertwined cultures of historic Comancheria.
View the online Virtual Celebration at QuanahParkerDay.com on Saturday, September 12.
1 Neeley, Bill. (1996). The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker. New York, NY: Wiley.
2 Texas Legislature, 86th session, SCR 7 (2019). “Quanah Parker Day.” Signed June 10, 2019.
