The Brazos Indian Reservation, founded by General Randolph B. Marcy in 1854, provided a safety area from warring Comanche for Delaware, Shawnee, Tonkawa, Wichita, Choctaw, and Caddo.

[4][5] During December 1858, Choctaw Tom, who was a Yowani married to a Hasinai woman, who was at times an interpreter to Sam Houston, and a group of reservation Indians received permission for an off-the-reservation hunt.

On December 27, Captain Peter Garland and a vigilante group charged Choctaw Tom's camp, indiscriminately murdering and injuring women and children along with the men.

[6] Governor Hardin Richard Runnels[7] ordered John Henry Brown[8] to the area with 100 troops.

In May 1859, John Baylor[9] and a number of whites confronted United States troops at the reservation, demanding the surrender of certain tribal individuals.

Ranching entrepreneurs Oliver Loving[10] and Charles Goodnight,[11] who blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail, along with Reuben Vaughan, were the nucleus of the original settlers.

As farmers and ranchers began to compete for precious land and water, cattlemen found feeding their herds more difficult, prompting cowboys to cut through fences.

Texas Governor John Ireland prodded a special assembly to order the fence cutters to cease.

Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway,[15] a short distance to east of the town of Mineral Wells in Palo Pinto County, was opened to the public in 1981; it lies in Parker County.

The Texas National Guard organized the 56th Cavalry Brigade in 1921, and four years later, Brigadier General Jacob F. Wolters[16] was given a grant to construct a training camp for the unit.

The Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the facilities, and the Possum Kingdom State Park opened to the public in 1950.