Living
Bell County Museum opens exhibit on Quanah, Cynthia Ann Parker
Wednesday, 06 June 2012 by Keith Bahlmann
Quanah Parker shown on his horse in 1892.The Bell County Museum is pleased to host the traveling exhibit, A Woman OF Two Worlds & a Man IN Two Worlds: Cynthia Ann & Quanah Parker.
The exhibit opens on June 1 and will remain on view through Aug. 15.
The exhibit is a heritage tourism effort of the Texas Lakes Trail Regional Heritage Tourism Program, and focuses on two of the most important people in early Texas history. In 1836 a Comanche raiding party took Cynthia Ann from her family.
Over the following years, she became wife to Pete Nocona, a Comanche chief and mother to three children, including Quanah.
Cynthia Ann Parker as she appeared when she was taken to Austin by the Texas Rangers when the 9th Texas Legislature was in session during the time it was considering a pension and grant of land to her.After Cynthia Ann was returned to her Anglo family by Texas Rangers, Quanah became one of the most important Comanche leaders both in war and peace. Their stories have significance in local, state and national history.
One of the many ways this exceptional story is relevant to Bell County is that the Parkers and the Plummers were in the same wagon train with Bell County's early pioneer family, the Sparkes.
While the Parkers and Plummers settled and built their stockade fort in what is now Limestone County, the Sparks family continued south and settled in what is now east Bell County.
The exhibit includes more than 40 photographs.
For more information, contact the museum at (254) 933-5243.
