Chief Henry Roman Nose, for whom this park is named, was one of forty-four chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne tribe. He was a council chief from 1897 until his death in 1917. Born in 1856, Roman Nose, Woqini in the Cheyenne language, grew up during a turbulent and tragic time for the Plains Indian tribes. As a teenager, he participated in raids against white settlers and was among the warriors who surrendered in 1875 at the Darlington Indian Agency. After serving a three-year prison sentence in Florida and receiving some education, he returned to Oklahoma. Upon leaving the Darlington Agency, Roman Nose and his family made their home on a knoll within the valley of Bitter Creek. In 1912, he had a conventional wood-frame home built on the rim of the canyon, north of the dug-out. As a council chief, Roman Nose served his people in many ways and helped members of his tribe deal with profound changes in their lives as they adjusted from a free-roaming life on the plains to life with white society. His first wife and two infant children died of disease. Although trained as a tinsmith, he was often forced to work in jobs for which he was untrained or ill-suited. In his later years, disillusioned by unkept government promises, Roman Nose rejected white society. He died a few days short of his sixty-first birthday.