Ghostly Golf Course in Cheyenne, Oklahoma

Two summers ago, avoiding I-70 West not far from the border with the Texas panhandle, I stumbled onto Cheyenne.  It is notorious for General George Custer’s night raid on a Cheyenne Indian village in 1868. Hundreds of natives, many sleeping women and children were murdered in one of the most horrifying deeds perpetrated by the US government against Native Americans.

Cheyenne today is emptying out– especially of young people.  This photo, taken in 2015, illustrates similar abandonment seen across rural America.  Even the sign looks like a gravestone in this haunted play land that has been shuttered for 8 years.

Custer was killed in the Battle of Little Big Horn (Custer’s last stand) 8 years later.  He was found, shot in the head and heart, and it was claimed his body was desecrated with ‘an arrow inserted into his penis,’ by the people he had been hounding across the prairies for nearly ten years.