In the spring of 1874 a handful of men and one woman set out for the Texas Panhandle to seek their fortunes in the great buffalo hunt. They intended to establish a trading post to serve the hunters, or
hide men,
and at a place called Adobe Walls they dug blocks from the sod and built their center of operations. After only a few months, angry members of several Plains Indian tribes, whose survival depended on the rapidly shrinking bison herd, attacked the post. Initially defeated, the attacking Indians retreated. But the defenders also retreated, and intent on erasing all traces of the white man’s presence, the Indians burned the deserted post. Nonetheless, tracings did remain, and in the ashes were buried minute details of the hide men’s lives. Adobe Walls tells us much about the dying of the Plains Indian culture and the march of white commerce across the frontier.