THE ROLLING RED RIVER COUNTRY that is now Hardeman County was once the territory of Lipan Apaches and later Comanches and Kiowas. On account of its isolation and its domination by Indians, settlement came late to the area and even then, cattle rustling across the river thrived as a major industry. (Author and attorney Bill Neal-also chronicler of the county's history in The Last Frontier: The Story of Hardeman County-tells of the lawless days in this part of Texas in such accounts as Getting Away with Murder on the Texas Frontier: Notorious Killings and Celebrated Trials and From Guns to Gavels: How Justice Grew Up in the Outlaw West). The Fort Worth and Denver Railway surveyed the area in 1885, five years after the county was organized, and in 1890 Quanah became the county seat in an election perhaps swayed by railroad crews eligible as resident voters by virtue of having laundry done in a town for six weeks.

Quanah Parker

 The city of Quanah was named for Comanche chief Quanah Parker, son of Peta Nocona and kidnapped Anglo settler Cynthia Ann Parker. Today the post office captures the town's birth in a 1938 mural by noted artist Jerry Bywaters, featuring Chief Quanah and a frontiersman against a panoramic background. The city also honors Quanah Parker with a granite monument beside the Beaux Arts 1908 Hardeman County Courthouse. In 1903 the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was built to Quanah from Oklahoma City, giving the county direct access to St. Louis and points east, and in 1910 the Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railroad opened a rail link with the West, launching a population boom that continued until the Great Depression. Today Hardeman County thrives on agriculture and cattle ranching, and while the QA&P no longer runs, an appreciation for the past runs high throughout the region.
(Information from tshaonline.org, Texas Atlas of Historic Sites)