Big Timbers

Big Timbers is a wooded riparian area in Colorado along both banks of the Arkansas River that is famous as a campsite for Native American tribes and travelers on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail.

It was known by its Spanish name following Juan Bautista de Anza's defeat of Cuerno Verde and the parties signed a peace treaty there in 1785–1786.

[a] Alongside the Arkansas River for 40 miles (64 km) Big Timbers was a prime location for hunting buffalo, a major source of food for the Cheyenne.

[8] According to Hyde, William Bent's wife, Owl Woman and her children traveled with her tribe to Big Timbers during the winter months and were at the fort itself during the summer.

Always movement — sometimes to Big Timbers close to the buffalo herds, sometimes to the fort, but always someplace where grass was thick, wood plentiful, and water fresh and sweet.

Big Timbers along the Arkansas River. An illustration from Richard Irving Dodge (1883). Our Wild Indians; Thirty-three Years' Personal Experience Among the Red Men of the Great West
The only surviving daguerreotype from Solomon Nunes Carvalho 's journey West in 1853 depicts a view of the Cheyenne village at Big Timbers. A pair of figures stand to the left; drying hides hang on the right. Courtesy of Library of Congress .
Plaque erected by Prowers County Historical Society at Big Timbers Museum, Lamar, Colorado