Love Bug-Quanah Turquoise Chip Composite

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 31-Dec-23 this trackable had survived for 7.9 years and had been moved by 31 cachers, for an average drop every 93 days, or 3.9 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of heart-shaped items obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs. They are named either for the places of their origin or for Texas Panhandle-South Plains towns with interesting names or histories.  

Quanah is a city in and the county seat of Hardeman County.  It is a few miles from the Oklahoma-Texas state line.  The community was organized in 1884 as a stop on the Fort Worth and Denver Railway.  The county seat of Hardeman County was moved from Margaret to Quanah in 1890 after an acrimonious battle that contributed to the splitting off of the southern section of Hardeman County as Foard County.  The population of Quanah was 1,477 in 1890, 3,127 in 1910, 4,464 in 1930, a record 4,589 in 1950, and 3,890 in 1980. 

Texas Ranger William McDonald lived in Quanah, where he was fatally wounded in a shootout in 1893 with Childress County Sheriff John Matthews.   The town is named for Quanah Parker, the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory.  Parker was also a leader in the Native American Church.  He was the son of Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, a European American, who had been kidnapped in East Texas at the age of nine and assimilated into the tribe.  Quanah Parker also led his people on the reservation, where he became a wealthy rancher and influential in Comanche and European American society. With seven wives and 25 children, Quanah had numerous descendants. Many people in Texas and Oklahoma claim him as an ancestor.