Sweetwater Creek is central to the range of the southern buffalo herd. Along its banks were located favored hunting camps of Plains tribes, such as the Comanche and Kiowa. The encroachment of American hide hunters at Sweetwater Creek was contested by the Comanche and their Kiowa allies. It figured in the Red River War of 1874, which was a campaign by the US Army to confine Native American tribes on the reservations to minimize conflict between the Americans and Native tribes.[citation needed]
Fort Elliott was located on the banks of Sweetwater Creek.[5]
The town of Mobeetie, Texas, a Native American word meaning "sweet water", and Sweetwater, Oklahoma, are named for the creek.
^Lester Fields Sheffy, The Life and Times of Timothy Dwight Hobart, 1855-1935: Colonization of West Texas (Canyon, Texas: Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1950), p. 137