Llano Estacado - History and Name

History and Name

Coronado named the region after seeing the cliffs of the Caprock Escarpment from the north on his way east from Cíbola. They appeared to be an impenetrable defense for the land, and he called it Llano Estacado, Spanish for "Palisaded Plain." The name of the region has historically been widely known as the "staked plain," giving rise to several stories to explain it. Some allude to yucca stems, others to stakes driven into the ground as landmarks used to course across the flat, featureless region, and others to the mis transformed Spanish word estancado which means "stagnant" (water).

While traveling across the great plain in 1541 Coronado wrote:

"I reached some plains so vast I did not find their limit anywhere that I went, although I traveled over them for more than 300 leagues .... with no more land marks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea. ... here was not a stone, nor bit of rising ground, nor a treee, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by."

When Coronado first traveled across the plains he wrote of traveling for great distance upon the barren flat country. His only written account did not contain one reference to the several thousands of obvious playa lakes he would have had to pass around. These playa lakes are stagnant enclosures of rainfall runoff of less than an acre up to several miles in size. This significant missing geographic detail in the Coronado record, leads a growing number of geographers, researchers and authors to wonder if the region was originally named Llano Estancado for the presence of these lakes. The possibility that the 'stagnant' naming would hinder development of the region in the late 1800s is increasingly considered. That Coronado's history was 'tweaked' by citing a more inviting name for economic development of the region is currently the most popular reasoning for naming this region of the Great Southern Plains. However, these speculations are unproven.

The conquistadors reintroduced horses to the Great Plains since their extinction in North America eons earlier. Some horses escaped and bred in the wild. The Native American tribes of the Plains captured horses and integrated them into their cultures in the succeeding centuries. Having horses allowed them to expand their territories and hunting grounds. Before this, the dog was their largest domesticated animal.

In the early 18th century, the Comanches expanded their territory into the Llano Estacado, displacing the Apaches who had previously lived there. The region became part of the Comancheria, a Comanche stronghold until the final defeat of the tribe in the late 19th century.

In the latter part of the 19th century, the Llano was a refuge for the bands of Kiowas and Comanches who did not wish to be confined to reservations in Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. One of their last battles against the US Army was fought on 2 December 1874 in Palo Duro Canyon. In this region of minimal water, it was very difficult for the U.S. Cavalry to function. The Native Americans could disappear into the slight draws of the featureless expanse, or into the labyrinths of canyons such as Palo Duro.