Part 1: The First Peoples of the Leon River: An Indigenous Mosaic

The human history of the land that would become Gatesville and Coryell County, Texas, does not begin with the 19th-century frontier. It is a story of deep antiquity, with evidence of human occupation in Central Texas stretching back at least 12,000 years.¹ Archeological findings, including numerous artifacts and a medicine wheel discovered on North Fort Hood, affirm this long-standing presence.¹

By 4500 B.C., hunting and gathering peoples had established themselves along the Leon River.² These early inhabitants gave rise to the “famous ‘Burnt Rock Midden’ area of Central Texas,” a culture defined by these distinctive archeological features that extended over the drainage basins of the Leon, Bosque, and Lampasas rivers.³ This rich record, systematically studied by local researchers such as Clyde Bailey of Gatesville, forms the foundational layer of the region’s human story.³

By the time of European contact and American colonization, the region was a crossroads for numerous Indigenous cultures, each with distinct lifeways and spheres of influence.¹

Profiles of the Primary Tribes (Pre-1849)

The Waco (Wichita): An agrarian, semi-sedentary group, the Waco (also spelled Wi-iko or Huaco) were a division of the Wichita people.¹ Their primary presence was concentrated along the Brazos River, with their main village located near the site of the modern-day city of Waco.⁶ They were skilled farmers, cultivating crops such as melons, pumpkins, lima beans, and corn.⁶ Their well-organized villages consisted of distinctive, beehive-shaped grass houses.⁵ By 1830, however, the pressure of American settler encroachment had already pushed them upriver, and by 1835, they were part of a series of treaties that led to their eventual removal to Oklahoma.⁷
The Lipan Apache and Kiowa: Other groups were also significant to the area. The Lipan Apaches had established themselves as neighbors to the Tonkawas sometime after 1300.⁸ The Kiowa, a major Plains tribe, also migrated through the region and “sometimes resided in the area”.¹
The Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ): The most dominant Indigenous power of the 19th-century Central Texas plains was the Comanche.⁹ Their influence defined the era and the anxieties of the new settlers. For the geography of Gatesville, the most critical fact is that Coryell Creek, a tributary of the Leon River, “has been identified as a major war trail for the Comanche”.¹⁰

This single geographical fact provides the entire raison d’être for the subsequent conflict. Coryell County was not a random backwater; it was a strategic artery, a highway for Comanche war and raiding parties moving south from their strongholds into the new Anglo settlements of Robertson’s Colony ⁴ and the areas surrounding Austin.² The “Indian history” of Gatesville is, therefore, not incidental. The area was central to the primary geopolitical struggle of 19th-century Texas: the clash between the expanding American frontier and the established power of the Comanche. The raids that followed were not random incursions but predictable military movements along this known strategic corridor.

Part 2: The Tonkawa Nation: A Precarious Alliance

While many tribes traversed the county, the Tonkawa are best understood as its most foundational 19th-century Indigenous residents. Archeological evidence suggests that the peoples who inhabited the Leon River basin in 4500 B.C. were “probably ancestors of the Tonkawa Indians”.²

Their culture was a mix of hunting and agriculture; they “grew corn, beans, pumpkins, melons,” and “gathered wild fruits and nuts”.³ Their own “Old Tonkawa trail” ran northeast-southwest through the county, crossing near Cox Spring, a few miles east of modern-day Gatesville. This trail is still marked by unique petroglyphs known as the “bowl and spoon carvings”.³

A “Willing Ally” Against the Comanche

The Tonkawa were forced to make a critical geopolitical decision in the face of Comanche dominance. Local histories note they had a “moral fear of the Kiowa and Comanche,” at whose hands they had “suffered a great deal”.³ At some point in the early 19th century, their relations with the Comanches soured, and the Tonkawas “remained staunch allies of the English-speaking settlers in Texas”.¹¹

This alliance was not passive; it was tangible and local. The Tonkawa “consorted” with the white settlers “for protection against their old enemies”.³ When Fort Gates was established in 1849, the Tonkawa set up a camp close to the fort and another near Hay Valley and the Leon River.¹⁰ They actively served as scouts for the Texans and, later, the United States Army in their wars against other tribes.¹¹ When Gen. Mackenzie was ordered to force the Comanche onto the plains, he “enlisted the Tonkawa warriors as scouts,” and “history is replete with records of their bravery”.¹² The Tonkawa nation, numbering between four and five hundred warriors, defined itself by its boast: “that a white scalp was never lifted by a member of their tribe”.³

This alliance, however, provides the central tragedy of Coryell County’s Indigenous history. The research presents a stark and devastating contradiction. The Tonkawa were described by settlers as “peaceable, intelligent and easily controlled” ³ and were “staunch allies”.¹¹ Yet, the arrival of the U.S. Army, in the form of Fort Gates, signaled their doom. A local chronicle states it in unambiguous terms: “With the establishing of Ft. Gates, in 1849, the Tonkawa, as a Nation, ceased to exist. Within four years they were entirely dispossessed and forcibly sent into an exile from which they never returned”.³

This passage reveals the blunt and indiscriminate nature of American frontier policy. The establishment of the fort, intended to protect settlers from “marauding Indians” ⁴, was the direct catalyst for the removal of the allied Tonkawa. The very military apparatus the Tonkawa camped near for protection was the instrument of their “complete obliteration” from their ancestral lands.³ Their loyalty, their service as scouts, and their peaceable stance bought them nothing. They were forcibly exiled, with only a “small remnant” of this “once honored race” surviving on a reservation in Oklahoma.¹²

Part 3: Fort Gates and the American Frontier (1849-1852)

The town of Gatesville, the Coryell county seat, “grew up around Fort Gates”.⁴ The fort’s history is therefore the town’s origin story.

Establishment and Purpose

Fort Gates, originally known as Camp Gates, was established by Capt. William R. Montgomery on October 26, 1849.¹³ It was authorized by Gen. George Mercer Brooke, commander of the Eighth Military Department, as the “last of a cordon of posts” established that year to “protect settlers on the frontier from Indians”.¹³

Its location was explicitly strategic: “on the north bank of the Leon River above Coryell Creek”.¹³ It was placed directly astride the major Comanche war trail, the primary threat corridor into the new settlements.¹⁰ The installation was substantial, consisting of eighteen buildings constructed for its garrison, including four officers’ quarters, two company quarters, a hospital, storehouses, a bakehouse, and a blacksmith shop.¹³

Garrison and Notable Personnel

The fort was garrisoned by men from companies D, I, F, and H of the Eighth United States Infantry.¹³ The 1850 census enumerated six officers and ninety-four men, though its personnel peaked in April 1851 at 256 enlisted men and forty-five officers.¹³

This remote frontier post is also linked to the broader tapestry of American history by one of its officers: Lt. George Pickett. Pickett, who would later become a Confederate general infamous for leading “Pickett’s Charge” at the Battle of Gettysburg, was stationed at Fort Gates from 1850 to 1851.¹³

The Strategic Failure of Fort Gates

Despite its clear purpose and substantial garrison, Fort Gates was a strategic failure that inadvertently created the conditions for the violence that would define the county’s history.

The fort’s ineffectiveness was recognized almost immediately. In early 1850, Lt. W. H. C. Whiting of the Corps of Engineers was ordered to conduct a reconnaissance of the new line of forts. His report was scathing, concluding that Fort Gates was “good only for the protection of its immediate neighborhood” and that “the nature of the country” allowed Indigenous raiding parties to move in all directions with impunity.¹³

Whiting’s assessment was proven correct. The fort’s lifespan was remarkably brief. The “Indian menace was soon removed” (a claim disputed by later events), and Fort Gates was ordered abandoned in March 1852, making it the “first of the cordon of posts to be evacuated”.¹³ It had existed for only two and a half years.

This rapid abandonment created a dangerous security vacuum. Settlers, such as those in Robertson’s Colony, had “began moving into the area after Fort Gates was established” ⁴, operating under the assumption of federal protection. When the garrison left, these settlers became exposed. The Hooser family, for example, located on Owl Creek in 1857 but were “soon frightened out by the Indians” and fled to McLennan County for two years before daring to return.¹⁴ The fort, having lured settlers to the area and simultaneously precipitating the removal of the allied Tonkawa, left a power vacuum. This vacuum was filled by the very “marauding” forces the fort was meant to stop, leading directly to the period of intense violence that began in 1857.

Part 4: “True Stories”: Narratives of Conflict on the Coryell Frontier (1857-1864)

The user’s query for “battles or true stories” is answered not by accounts of conventional military engagements, but by a series of brutal, small-scale raids that occurred in the vacuum left by the fort’s closure.

The Climate of Fear

A primary source document, a letter written from Gatesville on February 11, 1860, to Governor Sam Houston, provides a visceral window into the climate of fear:

“May it please your Honor to read a flew lines from one who has alway been a zealous supporter of Sam Houston I have been a citizen and a sufferer in the county of Coryell for the last six years I have taken many a hard ride to rescue property from the hands of the Red Skins my friends and neighbours has been murdered”.15

This letter frames the “true stories” that follow, which are defined by personal loss and terror.

The Sugar Loaf and Owl Creek Raids: Analyzing Conflicting Narratives

The most detailed accounts of violence in Coryell County center on the Riggs and Elms families. However, pioneer records provide two distinct, and partially contradictory, narratives of these events.

Narrative A: The 1857 Pioneer Record

This account, drawn from “an old pioneer record” and the memory of Mrs. Irene Elms, describes two separate incidents in 1857.12

The 1857 Owl Creek Raid: Two men, named Brown and Pierce, were hauling rails from a cedar brake with a “little boy named Dave Elam” ¹² (or Elms ¹⁶). They were attacked. Brown and Pierce were “killed and scalped.” The boy, Dave, was “severely flogged” and then “permitted to escape”.¹²
The Sugar Loaf Raid (Riggs Family): At a separate time, the Riggs family (Mr. and Mrs. Riggs) were “hauling wood” with their children and were “unarmed.” They were attacked. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs were “murdered” and their “home set on fire.” Their two daughters, aged 7 and 9, were “made captives” but were “soon released and abandoned.” The girls found an abandoned house, spent the night, and were rescued by a neighbor the next morning.¹²

Narrative B: The 1859 “Bloody Raid” Account

A second, more granular and gruesome narrative provides a unified story, dated to the spring of 1859.17

The Initial Attack: Citizens from the Sugar Loaf Mountain community were heading to the cedar brakes. A man named “Y. Pierce” was killed first.
The Whipping: Wm. Riggs and David M. Elms (now 13 years old) were walking with their wagons when they were assaulted and “whipped unmercifully with the tail of an ox”.¹⁷
Riggs’s Flight: Riggs, in a panic, ran 400 yards toward his home. The warriors “tantalized” him “not unlike a cat playing with a mouse,” with several whipping him on the back “to make him move faster”.¹⁷ They retreated upon seeing the house.
The Massacre: Riggs, his wife, and three small children fled the home. About 300 yards away, the “screaming savages” charged again. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs were “almost instantly murdered.” Their two daughters, Margaret and Rhoda, were taken prisoner. The baby, Wm. C. Riggs, Jr., was “left bathing in his mother’s blood”.¹⁷
Elms’s Escape: During the final massacre, the “two or three” warriors who had been guarding David Elms left him to join the attack. Elms “ran away and successfully escaped”.¹⁷

These two narratives cannot both be correct in their entirety. Narrative A, based on the aging memory of a pioneer, appears to be a classic case of historical conflation. It is a simplified, misremembered version of the events, splitting the single, complex 1859 raid into two separate, simpler stories in 1857. The “flogging” of Dave Elms in Narrative A is a sanitized echo of the “unmerciful whipping with an ox tail” in Narrative B. The presence of a “Pierce,” “Riggs,” and “Elms” in both accounts, all tied to hauling wood or rails from the cedar brakes, strongly suggests that Narrative B is the more probable, detailed, and horrific “true story.”

The following table visually synthesizes these conflicting pioneer accounts.

Comparative Analysis of Coryell County Raid Narratives (1857-1859)
Date	Location	Source/Account	Key Victims	Survivor(s)	Key Events
1857	Owl Creek	Narrative A ¹²	Brown, Pierce	Dave Elms (boy)	Killed/scalped while hauling rails. Boy was flogged and released.
1857 (date unspecified)	Sugar Loaf	Narrative A ¹⁶	Mr. & Mrs. Riggs	Two daughters (7 & 9)	Killed while hauling wood; unarmed. Home burned. Girls captured and abandoned.
Spring 1859	Sugar Loaf / Cowhouse	Narrative B ¹⁷	Y. Pierce, Mr. & Mrs. Riggs	David M. Elms (13), Two daughters (Margaret & Rhoda), Wm. C. Riggs, Jr. (baby)	Multi-stage attack. Elms & Riggs whipped with ox tail. Riggs family murdered while fleeing. Baby left in blood. Girls captured. Elms escapes.

The “War of a Thousand Cuts” (1859-1864)

The Riggs Massacre was the most brutal, but it was not an isolated incident. The period was defined by a persistent, low-intensity conflict. The search for “battles” is a misnomer; the reality was an asymmetric war of terror fought against individual families.

Spring 1859: Judge Perryman was “almost surrounded” by a war party while searching for stock on Stampede Creek. He “successfully escaped into a thick cluster of timber”.¹⁷
1860: Two Primitive Baptist elders, J. C. White of Coryell County and Elder Griffith of Hamilton County, were “attacked by Indians” near Rainey Creek church. They escaped to the brush, but Griffith was “so badly wounded that he soon afterward died”.¹²
1863: A Mr. Williamson and a Mr. Hendrickson were attacked by Comanches while returning to their home on the Cowhouse River. A horseman “ran a spear thru Mr. Williamson, killing him instantly.” He was scalped, and his body was left where it fell. Mr. Hendrickson escaped.¹⁶
1864: Captain Gideon Graham’s “little boy” was captured near Sugar Loaf Mountain. When a posse led by Captain Burleson gave chase, the captors, to prevent the boy’s recapture, “pierced his body with a lance.” Captain Burleson returned the boy’s dead body to his father.¹⁶

These accounts demonstrate a consistent pattern. The conflict in Coryell County was not a war of armies or “battles.” It was a series of raids, ambushes, and “murders”.¹⁶ The victims were almost always civilians, “unarmed” ¹⁶ and engaged in domestic tasks like “hauling rails”.¹² The violence was personal, brutal, and tactical, involving scalping ¹⁶, spearing ¹⁶, and the psychological terror of “tantalizing” a victim.¹⁷ This asymmetric reality explains the deep, personal trauma evident in the pioneer records.¹⁵

Part 5: Legacy and Displacement: The Two Exiles

The raids of the 1850s and 1860s represented the final, violent phase of the Texas-Indian wars in the region.⁹ The U.S. Army, returning in force after the Civil War, enacted a final solution to the “Indian problem.”

The “eternal exile” ¹⁶ of all Indigenous peoples from Central Texas was completed. The Waco and Tawakoni were long gone to Oklahoma.⁷ The allied Tonkawa, who had been “forcibly sent into an exile” in 1852 ³, were reduced to a “small remnant” on a different reservation.¹² The Comanche, the “Lords of the Plains,” saw their last free bands, led by Quanah Parker, surrender in 1875.⁹ A pioneer epitaph from a Coryell County history captures the sentiment of the time: “The red man no longer stalks these cedared hills, and his raiding the settlements is but a memory of a once proud race, driven into eternal exile”.¹⁶

However, the story of forced displacement on this specific piece of land did not end with the removal of its Indigenous inhabitants. In a profound historical echo, the very land that was the epicenter of the 19th-century conflict—the Sugar Loaf settlement—became the site of a second forced displacement, this time of the settlers’ descendants.

Mrs. Elms, a relative of the boy who survived the 1859 raid, “lived there until her home was taken over by the government to be made a part of Camp Hood in 1942”.¹⁶ A separate record confirms this, stating that all “Residents of Sugar Loaf were forced to move when the Fort Hood military reservation was established in the early 1940s”.¹⁸

The land of Coryell County is thus marked by a deep, repeating legacy of military-driven displacement. The same institution—the United States government and its military, the direct successor to the Fort Gates garrison—that precipitated the first “obliteration of a… nation of people” ³ by removing the Tonkawa, also enacted a second, 20th-century exile upon the descendants of the settlers, turning the ground of the Riggs Massacre into a military training site.