Palmer Divide Research

Bijou Basin fight (Aug. 25, 1868)

Also: the raid on the Kiowa and Bijou settlements

Forts, raids and the Indian warsHistoric or vanishedElbert County

What we know

Kiowa settlers chasing raiders who had driven off their stock and taken Henrietta Dietermann and her son from their ranch on Comanche Creek 'pursued them as far as Bijou Basin, where [they] ran onto a large party of them, fighting inhabitants of that place'; 'columns of smoke were seen rising from the Basin, as if the houses had been fired' (Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 26, 1868). Mrs. Dietermann and her boy were found killed near their house; a Denver company of forty mounted men left for Bijou Basin on Sept. 2 (News, Sept. 2, 1868). Placed at GNIS's Bijou Basin; where in the basin the fighting happened is not stated.

Where it was

USGS GNIS Basin 193210

The U.S. Geological Survey's official point for this place name.

See it on the map

Sources

Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.

Know more about Bijou Basin fight (Aug. 25, 1868)?

Corrections, family stories, photographs, deeds, letters and maps are all welcome. Messages and files come to Michael Christensen privately; nothing appears on the site until it has been checked, and you'll be credited the way you ask.