Tower Hill is a prominent landmark some five miles south of Sterling City, Texas. Local residents have long known of and wondered about the origins of man-made piles of rocks on top of this hill. With no known oral or written history, lore developed that this might have represented a forgotten fort of some kind. The mystique of Tower Hill increased when a burial of what was thought to be a Comanche chief was found in a hidden cave at the base of the hill, along with a number of accompanying artifacts. This article will describe research that reveals the route of the Comanche War Trail between two well known locations on this trail — Big Spring on the Colorado River and Horseshoe Crossing of the Pecos River. Tower Hill was a favorite campsite along this trail, used by raiders as they went to and from Mexico, and for their families who often remained for months at locations like Tower Hill while their men wreaked havoc in Mexico.
Monday, December 22, 2025
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Bison Jump Sites in Texas
Native Americans hunted bison in many different ways. One of the most unusual is called a bison jump. This is where they caused a herd of bison to stampede over a cliff, killing many as they fell to the ground below. Although rare, when the right conditions of geography, herd location, etc. existed this carefully planned method could produce an abundance of food which could be dried (jerked) and kept for future use.
Texas has three known bison jump sites, ranging in time from Paleo-Indian days to historic times. These sites are described in the following document.
Monday, June 30, 2025
Peopling the Americas
Humans are relative late-comers to the Americas. Archaeological and DNA discoveries
during the past decade has presented strong evidence that the first humans were here at least
22,000 years ago, and that they came from Siberia, along the Bering Sea and Northeast Pacific
coast. This article describes the details of how we know this happened.