At or near this spot, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, with two companies of United States 4th Cavalry, was overtaken on December 4, 1874, by a snowstorm. Forced to spend the night here without wood or water, or grass for the horses, troops called this the most miserable night of their duty in the Southwest. Several horses froze to death. MacKenzie was hunting here for straggling Indians during the last weeks of the 1874 campaign to confine tribes to reservations. On December 5 his troops reached Tahoka Lake, where they found shelter under a cliff.