Editing Sterling County, Texas (section)

===Native Americans===

Original native [[Plains Indians]] included [[Comanche]], [[Lipan Apache people|Lipan Apache]], [[Kiowa]], and [[Kickapoo people|Kickapoo]].<ref name="Sterling County">{{cite web|last=Leffler|first=John|title=Sterling County|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcs15|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 14, 2010}}</ref>

The region had a number of violent encounters between the [[Comanche]], local ranchmen, and [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Rangers]]. A deadly skirmish occurred in the 1870s between area ranchmen and the Comanche on the Lacy Creek on the present day Campstool Ranch. “The Fight at Live Oak Mott” is an account of the events as written by W.K. Kellis, in the Sterling City ''News-Record'', and later published in ''Frontier Times'' by J. Marvin Hunter. In 1879, the last significant battle between the Texas Rangers and the Comanche occurred on the "U" Ranch, at the time the ranch was owned by Earnest and Holland. The Comanches, led by the Quahada chief named [[Black Horse (Comanche)|Black Horse]], left Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on May 29 with a group of 19 braves in a search for buffalo, and by June 29, they had yet to find any buffalo, so they killed a horse on the "U" Ranch, near the headwaters of the [[Concho River]] in [[Howard County, Texas|Howard County]], and an ensuing battle with the Texas Rangers soon followed. (I claim that this entire "raid" was probably not by Comanches—possibly by Apaches—but most likely non-Indian horse thieves. It was a cover-up of the mysterious killing of a Texas Ranger. And for the first time in Ranger history several of them were fired for cowardice. --Doyle Phillips) <ref>Phillips, Doyle, “The Comanches’ Last Raid Inquiry”, Published by FotoGrafica, Apartado Postal 251, Guanajuato, Guanajuato CP 36000, México. 2006.</ref>