The Legend of Hell’s Gate

Long before Anglo settlers moved into Palo Pinto County in Texas, Comanche Indians dominated the region, but fur traders eventually saturated this region. We don’t have a date for this legend. Two fur traders were trekking down through the headwaters of the Brazos River with moonshine whiskey and baubles to trade with any friendly Indians that they might meet on their way for Indian fur pelts. 

It was raining one day and those fur traders came upon a Comanche camp. The Comanches were smoking buffalo and deer meat. The fur traders spent a few days bartering with the Comanches for the trinkets they were carrying and noticed some fine quality fur pelts in the Comanches’ possession. The fur traders thought this was a good time to offer the Comanche leaders some free samples of their whiskey. 

When the Comanche leaders passed out drunk, the two fur trading conmen stealthily stole the Comanche’s quality furs, loaded them on their burros, and headed south along the Brazos River. About five miles out, one of their burros broke its leg, and the other burro couldn’t carry the double load for long. Their third and now only burro, who was now packing some of the Comanche furs, fell down a canyon and died.

Those fur traders were now carrying their own heavy stolen furs. They realized the Comanches were going to wake up soberly soon, and realized that the two fur trading conmen had stolen their best quality furs. They knew the Comanches would surely follow their tracks, find them, and scalp them. The fur traders could see the Comanche’s smoke signals in the sky nearby.

Those fur thieves knew by this time that the Comanches were already close to catching them. They happened to be at a point on the Brazos River where two high limestone cliffs rose high into the sky and were separated by the river. One of the traders dropped his share of the fur pelts and climbed up one of the cliffs. 

The other trader said he would rather go through the gates of Hell before he relinquished the furs to the Comanches. The Comanches did find those two fur traders, launched a significant amount of arrows, thereby piercing their bodies, and killed them both. From that day forward, that point on the Brazos River was called Hell’s Gate. When Possum Kingdom Lake began impoundment in 1941, it created Devil’s Island.