1103 - Quaker Indian Agency
The United States government's lamentable policy to relocate the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes from the plains onto a reservation necessitated the creation of an agency. Retired army officer Colonel W. B. Hazen, head of the Southern Indian District, built an adobe building just south of the newly established Fort Sill on the rocky banks of Cache Creek to serve as the agency headquarters. Colonel Hazen was no stranger to Indian affairs as during the fall of 1868, Hazen was in command of the nearby Fort Cobb. Along with the agency near Fort Sill, he was also the agent of another southern plains district, responsible for arranging the settlement of 6,000 members of various Plains Indian tribes.
On July 1, 1869, the agency was placed under the jurisdiction of Quakers who sought to transform the Native population into gentle farmers. Lawrie Tatum, a farmer from Iowa, was appointed an agent with the sole purpose of ending Indian raids into Texas and confining the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes to the reservation. This was to be accomplished through education and, of course, turning them into farmers.
One of the first orders of business for Tatum was to move the agency to higher ground on the west side of the Cache Creek, as the creek had been prone to frequent flooding. Several buildings were constructed including a two-story limestone Quaker-run schoolhouse, a physician’s home, an employee housing, a saw mill, and a grist mill. The school opened on February 20, 1871 with five Caddo children in attendance. However, the school building was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1885.
Having met with mixed success, a discouraged Lawrie Tatum resigned in 1873. His successor, J.W. Haworth moved the agency and school to the northern part of the reservation, near present-day Anadarko. The old agency near Fort Sill became a sub agency. Over time, a small settlement grew up around the sub agency, with approximately two dozen buildings, including “The Red Store”. Adjacent to the agency was the Comanche Mission, now called the Comanche Reformed Church. Imagine the scene in the late 1800s with hundreds of tipis and thousands of horses filling the landscape. Scores of women in bright-hued blankets, countless children, and barking dogs created a colorful and lively scene at the Indian post.
In 1892, the Jerome Agreement negotiations between the federal government and the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache tribes took place in front of the Red Store. This paved the way for tribes to receive individual land allotments and opened the remaining reservation land to public settlement. The establishment of Lawton on August 6, 1901 marked the end of the little village as everyone moved to town. A decade later, the agency closed and all buildings were demolished or moved. All that remains of the Quaker Indian Agency is the stone foundation of the old school house.