The Woodward News

Local News

January 12, 2011

Sod House Museum program to focus on Washita River battle

Gary Engel Woodward News

Woodward, Okla. — History buffs, especially those interested in Western Oklahoma’s bygone days, may want to consider attending a program at the Sod House Museum in Aline at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Renee Mitchell, the facility’s historic properties manager, said a presentation called “The 1868 Battle of the Washita River and its Impacts” is scheduled. The program will be given by  Kathleen O’Halleran, a Social Sciences instructor at Northwestern Oklahoma State University (NWOSU).

“We’re really excited to have her,” Mitchell said of O’Halleran.

O’Halleran said she came to Oklahoma from Arizona in 2004, and has been teaching at NWOSU in Alva since 2007.  She is the coordinator of the social science education department, helping train new teachers.

“I’ve always been interested in the history of the West,” O’Halleran, a former journalist, said.

She said NWOSU also has an interest in the settlement of the West, and how it ties in with the culture that developed.

O’Halleran said the Battle of the Washita never received the national attention that other incidents like Custer at the Little Big Horn have garnered.

“No one really knows what happened at Washita,” said the professor. “It was a tragedy. There are efforts going on to learn more.”

She said the story of the conflict has been handed down through the ancestors of the battle - the Cheyenne, settlers and military.  Some of the descendants, especially the native Cheyenne, may still be in the area, she added.

However, O'Halleran's presentation won't focus on those stories.  Rather, she said the presentation will focus on how the Battle of the Washita was a "watershed event" for the Cheyenne Indians, prompting a change in culture from their hunter-gatherer society to life on the reservation.

The Sod House Museum is east of Woodward off U.S. Highway 412 about 4.5 miles north of Cleo Springs on State Highway 8.  For more information, contact Mitchell at (580) 463-2441 or reneem@okhistory.org.

For those who miss out on this Saturday's presentation or who would just like to hear from O'Halleran again, Mitchell said O'Halleran is set to return to the museum on April 16 to present “Cimarron - A River’s Journey.”

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