Quanah Parker Star House | |
Location | Eagle Park Cache, Oklahoma |
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Coordinates | 34°38′04″N98°38′30″W / 34.63444°N 98.64167°W Coordinates: 34°38′04″N98°38′30″W / 34.63444°N 98.64167°W |
Built | ca 1890 |
NRHP reference No. | 70000532 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 29, 1970 |
The Quanah Parker Star House, with stars painted on its roof, is located in the city of Cache, county of Comanche, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Comanche County, Oklahoma, in 1970. [2]
After Comanche chief Quanah Parker's surrender in 1875, he lived for many years in a reservation tipi. Parker decided that he needed living quarters more befitting his status among the Comanches, and more suitable to his position as a spokesperson for the white cattle owners. In order to accommodate his multiple wives and children, this two-story ten-room clapboard house with ten-foot ceilings and a picket fence was constructed for Parker. Request for financial assistance was denied by the United States Government. Parker's friends in the cattle business, in particular 6666 Ranch owner Samuel Burk Burnett, financed the building of the house, circa 1890. [3]
The cost of construction was slightly over $2,000 ($48,000 in 2010, adjusted for inflation). In his formal wallpapered dining room with its wood-burning stove, Parker entertained white business associates, celebrities and tribal members alike. Among his celebrated visitors was Theodore Roosevelt. [4] Parker was a founding supporter of the Native American Church. His home was often the scene of practitioners who sought him out for spiritual advice. Parker fed hungry tribal members in his home and was known to never turn away anyone. [5]
The structure was purchased by his daughter Laura Neda Parker Birdsong upon Parker's 1911 death. Originally located near the Wichita Mountains north of Cache on Fort Sill's west range, Birdsong moved the house from its original location to Cache and sold it to Herbert Woesner in 1958. Although no one can be certain why Parker painted the stars on his roof, lore has it that he meant it as a display of rank and importance equal to a military general. The current owner, Woesner's nephew Wayne Gipson, offered the explanation told to him by Parker's descendants that the Chief had been to Washington D.C. to speak with Theodore Roosevelt, and while there had stayed in a "five star hotel". Parker had 10 stars painted on his roof to explain to Roosevelt upon his arrival that he would have better accommodations with ten stars instead of five. [6] The Preservation Oklahoma organization has listed the Star House as endangered. [7]
The Star House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also on Oklahoma's list of Most Endangered Historic Places. A storm in 2015 further damaged the already crumbling house, but stimulated efforts to preserve and reconstruct it, although preservation efforts are complicated by the fact that the house is in private ownership. A grant from the National trust for Historic Preservation enabled an assessment of the condition of the house and developed a plan to maintain it. [8] The cost of restoring the house was estimated at more than one million dollars. [9]
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Cache is a city in Comanche County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 2,796 at the 2010 census. It is an exurb included in the Lawton, Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is the location of Star House, the home of the Comanche chief Quanah Parker, the major leader of the Quahadi Comanche in the years of Indian Wars and transition to reservation life.
The Fort Parker massacre, also known as the Fort Parker raid, was an event in which a group of Texian colonists were killed in an attack by a contingent of Comanche, Kiowa, Caddo, and Wichita raiders at Fort Parker on May 19, 1836. During the attack, Cynthia Ann Parker, then 9-years-old, was captured and spent most of the rest of her life within the Comanche Nation, later marrying Chief Peta Nocona and giving birth to a son, Quanah Parker, who became a prominent leader of the Comanches and a war leader during the Red River War of 1874–75. Cynthia’s brother John Richard Parker was also captured and remained with the Comanches for six years before his release was negotiated. He was unable to readapt to Western society and chose to return to the Comanche Nation.
Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") 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. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Cynthia Ann Parker, also known as Naduah, was a white woman who was notable for having been captured during the Fort Parker massacre at about age nine, by a Comanche war band and adopted into the tribe. Twenty-four years later she was discovered and taken captive by Texas Rangers, at approximately age 33, and unwillingly taken back to European-American society. Her Comanche name means "someone found" in English.
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The Comanche campaign is a general term for military operations by the United States government against the Comanche tribe in the newly settled west. Between 1867 and 1875, military units fought against the Comanche people in a series of expeditions and campaigns until the Comanche surrendered and relocated to a reservation.
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