We have one near our home which is on Red Oak Creek, a pretty major water source. I’m sure Indians used these trees to guide them to the creek.

Do you have any around your area?

Are they possibly survey marks?

Spouse's family place has a couple and some really old survey trees too.

SS the Indians bent the trees over or branches down pointing to certain directions or places. They made them to grow in the direction they wanted to point out.

On my ranch. All that I’ve found point towards the river.

Here in Oklahoma I have 4 of them on my place, pretty cool. I'll post pictures later today.
They all mark the creek going through our place.

I've got one that is a survey and not sure if it says 1836 or 1936. In east Texas on bank of a creak.
It's only 300 miles from New Orleans that was founded in 1718, so 100 years later someone
could be living here. Or they just carved a date on a tree.

When were the indians mostly gone form Texas?

June 11, 1859, it was announced that the state and federal governments had reached an agreement to move them north of the Red River into Indian Territory. Escorted by soldiers and rangers, the 1,000 or so residents of the reservation crossed the river out of Texas on September 1.

As is always the case, the government was full of chit.

The Comanches didn't get the memo. They kept fighting into the mid 1870's until they relented. Specifically Quanna Parker's band.

Yep. Col. Ranald Mackenzie hunted them down and crushed their ability to continue living on the plains. Mackenzie was by far America's most successful Indian fighter.

This is actually a truthful statement. Just not all of them went. 1875 at Fort Sill was when and where the Comanches formally surrendered.

That is most likely an original line-tree mark and could have a lot of significance for land surveying. Really cool find. I would be happy to research it for you if you PM the section, township and range you are in.

We have several around here. We call them thong trees, which is how Indians and settlers would secure the tree in a bent over fashion.

So for the most part any marker trees would be around 140-150 yrs old or older?

The trees in the pictures seem like natural growth to me.

Lots of trees in the woods get bent over and grow strange shaped slowly for years. I could take pictures of quite a few on my place. Some just get too tall and spindly from lack of sun through the canopy. Many die but others just grow slow for years. Others a limb from a bigger tree or the tree itself hit and survive bent then grow upwards toward the light.

They tied them off when they were saplings so it has to do with how old the tree is. I have several that go up about 3-4 feet, make a right angle and then after a year or so they tied them back the other way so it is now vertical with a jag in it. I’m not sure what those marked but the ones pointing to the river they just tied down all the way to the ground.

Absolutely correct.

A classmate of Custer. Custer was a party-er, friends with everyone, arrogant, and a screw up. He's famous for his failure. MacKenzie is not as famous as he should be for his successes. Wounded many times in battle. In pain every day. And a very successful, long running military commander. Not that I'm saying I agree with the motivation behind the white man. And I can appreciate the hardships the natives endured. MacKenzie accomplish his missions many times over.

Yeah, that was my thinking too.

We have three on our place in Wood County that all point towards the Sabine River.

This is a good article about them and how to identify natural growth.

https://greensourcedfw.org/articles/comanche-marker-trees-texas-chronicled-dallas-tree-expert

Skeptical, but interesting.

we have at least 1 remaining on our place down near some of our artesian springs, several hundred year old pecan tree.

Texas Country Reporter on marker trees: