The Panic of 1891: A False Alarm in Collingsworth County
Published: December 1, 2024
Updated: December 1, 2024
On January 29, 1891, sixteen years after the Plains Indians had been confined to reservations, several settlers near the site of present Wellington in Collingsworth County became convinced that hostile American Indians were returning to their old lands. Mrs. Will Johnson brought her two children to Henry Stall's farm, where her husband and W. L. Huddleston were visiting, and told of hearing "bloodthirsty yells" and seeing smoke in the distance. Huddleston rode to Salisbury, where the depot agent wired for help, and the townspeople barricaded themselves wherever they could. Area ranchers sent out runners with news of an impending raid, and panic spread as far west as Amarillo and as far south as Plainview and Floydada. At the Mill Iron Ranch (see CONTINENTAL LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY) several families without firearms gathered at John Gist's dugout and stored piles of rocks to throw as weapons. In Clarendon, Henry W. Taylor's hardware store was picked clean of guns and ammunition. Temple Houston, who happened to be in Panhandle City on business, was elected leader of that town's defenses. A company of Texas Rangers commanded by Capt. William J. McDonald traveled by rail to defend the "front line" in Collingsworth County. Once there, they discovered the cause of the yelling and smoke that Mrs. Johnson had reported. Apparently S. H. Vaughn, foreman of the Rocking Chair Ranch, had ordered his men to kill a steer for supper. They had fired several shots and, during preparations for cooking, had accidentally incinerated the carcass. No Plains Indians were nearer than the Oklahoma reservations, but it took three days for the general panic to subside.
The unfounded rumors were fueled by reports of the Ghost Dance religion, in which the Sioux and other northern Plains tribes were involved, and by fear of retaliation for the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota the previous December. Some settlers blamed Charles Goodnight and other ranchers for purposely spreading the scare in an effort to discourage further agricultural settlement. After several years had passed, the settlers were able to laugh at themselves, and the story of the "attack" became a favorite among Panhandle pioneers. A Texas Historical Marker commemorating the event was erected on the Armstrong County courthouse square in Claude, Texas, in 1983.
Bibliography:
Inez Baker, Yesterday in Hall County (Memphis, Texas, 1940). Historical Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin. B. Byron Price, "The Great Panhandle Indian Scare of 1891," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 55 (1982). Jo Stewart Randel, ed., A Time to Purpose: A Chronicle of Carson County (4 vols., Hereford, Texas: Pioneer, 1966–72). Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876–1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Hugh Allen Anderson, “Great Panhandle Indian Scare,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/great-panhandle-indian-scare.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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- December 1, 2024
- December 1, 2024
