Published March 21, 2011 By Ken Fibbe
It caught him by surprise and left him with an awe-struck sense of disbelief.
During a bike ride last December at Stonewall Jackson Camp No. 249 in Holliday, Don Briix stopped his exercise short, hopped off his bike and glared in amazement at his discovery.
About 85 yards south of the United Confederate Veterans Monument, near a stream behind the baseball field, he found an old, 60-foot-tall, knob-laden pecan tree with a 12-foot base that seemed to have grown parallel to the ground over time.
To most passers-by, it probably looked like just another awkwardly shaped tree.
But Briix, a retired school principal who moved to Holliday from Colorado in June, had a deep feeling it was more than that.
"I remember saying, 'Oh my goodness,' " Briix said. "I think that is an Indian marker tree!"
Briix has been enthusiastic about marker trees since a park ranger showed him one in Florissant, Colo.
And he said the similarities between that one and the Holliday tree are too significant to ignore.
The Colorado Indian marker tree "had three limbs growing straight up out of it just like this one," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind that it was a marker tree I found."
Tied down for years over time by Native Americans, these bent trees once signified special areas of interest for tribes.
Linda Pelon, an anthropology and history instructor at McLennan Community College in Waco has been researching and investigating Comanche Indian-style marker trees for the past 15 years.
She said they typically pointed to low water crossings, campsites, rock paint quarries, hunting trails, graves, freshwater streams and prayer sites.
"They could have meant just about anything," Pelon said. "We are still finding new meanings all the time."
Pelon cited an example of a marker tree sighting she investigated at California Crossing Park in Dallas. The location was home to a historic low water fjord used by Indians, as well as pioneers, heading west to the 1849 California gold rush.
She said there was a marker tree located atop a high ridge, which pointed below to a small paint rock quarry along the trail. The quarry contained color-pigmented rock the Indians used to make red, brown and rust-colored paint.
"It could have very easily been missed had the marker not notified them," she said. "We found a stone tool there. That's evidence they used the quarry. And the marker tree appeared to be associated with it."
In 1997, Comanche Indian Tribe Chairman Wallace E. Coffey gave an official blessing and proclamation ceremony of a marker tree at Gateway Park in Dallas.
According to Coffey's proclamation letter, the tree grew on "a preferred Comanche campsite" that was near an "abundance of water and food resources including buffalo, deer, turkey, pecans plums and fresh grass for our ponies."
He noted in the letter that it was common practice for his tribe to tie down a tree to "serve as a marker and to give direction toward safety and security from our enemies" and that it is "a living monument to our historic presence in the great state of Texas."
Ironically, only a year after its declaration, the Gateway tree blew over in a storm.
But during the year it was a landmark, Pelon said it acted as a social gathering point where local Indians reconnected with each other.
"They would share tobacco, talk to each other, share stories, and pray at it," she said. "These are very sacred trees to them."
In the mid-to-late 1800s many Indians were moved to reservations and forced to ditch their culture and ignore their tribal teachings from thenceforth — slowly diminishing knowledge about the trees throughout generations of tribes, Pelon said.
In the 1950s many Indians were brought back through a relocation program, but few knew much about their history and culture anymore.
"The difficulty is that not much of it is written down, it is all word-of-mouth, passed down by tribal elders," said George Wells, president of Mountain Stewards, a Georgia-based nonprofit that researches and documents marker trees across America.
Wells said the Mountain Stewards have documented more than 1,600 trees and over 1,000 miles of Indian trails across 39 states.
When the Mountain Stewards find a marker tree, they register it on Google Earth, and try to find patterns and trails.
Wells said he has about 70 hours of documentary footage about marker trees and plans to show his findings to Congress, hoping to start legislation that protects the historic trees.
"National preservation laws do have elements to protect Indian trails," he said, but not living historical ties such as trees.
To find out more on the Holliday tree, Briix sent pictures of it to the Times Record News last month, who contacted local marker tree experts, arborists and various Indian tribes to narrow down its potential origin.
A Cherokee Nation spokesman said in an email that the "Cherokee people did not have a presence in the Wichita Falls area," and therefore ruled it out as theirs.
The Comanche Nation did not offer an opinion by the time of publication.
For protection purposes, the more knowledge people have of the trees the better, Pelon said, because construction workers, homebuilders and residents are likely cutting them down without knowing what they are.
But how can marker trees be recognized to prevent further destruction of them?
While there is no one set way to go about it, Pelon did offer insight into her method.
Typically a discoverer emails her photos, but the Mountain Stewards also accept submissions at mountainstewards.org.
If she feels like it makes a good case, Pelon will then research it further and take the evidence — documented tribal presence, photos, possible reasons for a marking, expert tree age estimations, etc. — and present it to a tribal council.
"But they may not want to tell you whether or not something is part of their heritage," she said. "It may be information they want to keep within their tribes."
Based on the evidence and their knowledge of their tribe's bent trees, they can then decide to claim it as theirs.
If proclaimed, the trees typically become historic landmarks and can bring tourism dollars to cities, benefiting the local economy.
"It could be a big deal for Holliday," Pelon said.
And the Holliday tree definitely makes a strong case to be one.
Steve Houser, an arborist of 30 years and founding member of the Dallas Tree Coalition, has been researching marker trees since the early '90s.
He was given circumference and height measurements of the tree taken by Briix, as well as a sample of a piece of fallen branch for inner ring count. Though he hadn't seen the tree in person, based on that information, Houser estimated it to be 250-300 years old.
"The bend, the possible age, the knobs, the Indian history of the area, its location: it all adds up to make a very, very strong case," he said.
Ultimately, he said he hopes people will come to recognize and respect these type of trees more — just as the Indians did.
"The trees are a part of Indian heritage and history, and we need to preserve them for generations to come," he said. "They are a living legacy. How cool is that?"