Qualla: Battle of Kelley Creek

Battle of Kelley Creek: Introduction

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. By the time the posse found them on February 25, 1911, the Daggett family had been running for nearly a year. Twelve Shoshone, mostly children and women, had fled the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho the previous spring, led by a man the newspapers would later call Shoshone Mike. Now they huddled in a makeshift camp at Kelley Creek, northeast of Winnemucca, Nevada, with lawmen closing in. What happened next, a three-hour firefight in the frozen sagebrush that left nine dead, would be called the Last Massacre, one of the final violent confrontations between Native Americans and United States forces in the American Indian Wars. But the story behind the headlines was not a rebellion. It was a family trying to survive.

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Battle of Kelley Creek: A Son's Death, A Father's Rage

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Mike Daggett led his family off the reservation at Rock Creek, Idaho in spring 1910. The group included three women, four or five children, and only two men who were not family members. They headed south into northern Nevada, where tragedy struck: a son called Dugan was mortally ...

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Battle of Kelley Creek: Four Stockmen in the Canyon

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. L. Matthews, Public domain. The Daggetts knew pursuit was coming. When four stockmen entered Little High Rock Canyon on January 19, 1911, searching for the missing cattle, the family opened fire. Harry Cambron and three Basque sheepherders, Bert Indiano, Peter Erramouspe, and John Laxague, were killed. Thei...

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Image: G. L. Matthews | Public domain

Battle of Kelley Creek: The Last Stand

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Donnelley's posse, including five policemen, armed civilians, and the county coroner, tracked the Daggetts through extreme cold and winter weather, covering over 200 miles before finding them at Kelley Creek. It remains unclear who fired first. The battle lasted approximately thr...

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Battle of Kelley Creek: The Survivors

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Sheriff Charles Ferrell arrived in Reno on March 2, 1911 with the four surviving captives. They confirmed the dead man was Shoshone Mike, though they said their mother was Bannock. The children were informally adopted by Reno's civilian population before being enrolled in the Ste...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Kelley Creek: What History Remembered

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Battle of Kelley Creek was briefly characterized as a Native American revolt, a last gasp of indigenous resistance against American expansion. The reality was both simpler and more tragic: a grieving father, a desperate family, a cascade of violence that began with the death ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain