40 or 50's Western American Indians die in Hotel room, blame white man..

I saw this Western movie on either TBS or AMC sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. It was a black & white movie, and at least 20 years old then, possibly older.

I can't remember any of the plot, but for some reason some American Indians are in town for a reason I can't remember, and are given a motel room, for their stay. While in the room. I can't remember if they are in several rooms, or just one. But while some are in one of the rooms, die mysteriously. Like I said, can't remember the plot, but does turns into a mystery to find out what killed the Indians.

The Indians blame the white man, and believe they are being targeted.

When the mystery is finally solved, come to find out the hotel in a fine hotel, and has gaslights as their source of light. The Indians, not knowing anything about gas lights, just assuming it is a regular light, blow them all out when they go to sleep, and are overcome by the gas fumes.

Thanks

Sandra

PS I placed this on the I Need to Know page first. I didn't get any responses to the movie I'm looking for, but did get a response from PeterD-5 who found the following article, one the website "Hometown By Handlebar" which I'm now convinced is the actual event that the above mentioned movie was based on.

At the Pickwick a “Deathly Perfume”: A “Noble Red Man Succumbs”
Posted on December 20, 2015 by hometown
On December 19, 1885 Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and his father-in-law, Chief Yellow Bear, came to Fort Worth. Yellow Bear was father of Wec-Keah, Quanah Parker’s first wife.

The two men arrived on the Fort Worth & Denver train from Indian Territory. They had come to Fort Worth to meet with Lee Hall, federal agent for the Wichita, Kiowa, and Comanche Indians, to discuss the collection of money that was due to their tribes from white cattlemen who had leased tribal reservation lands. Quanah Parker, son of Cynthia Ann Parker and Comanche Chief Peta Nocona, was about thirty-six at the time. The Fort Worth Daily Gazette described Quanah Parker as “by far the most influential man in the Comanche nation, well-to-do, intelligent, and liberal and a fast friend of the whites.” Among those whites was Burk Burnett. (Photo from Tarrant County College NE, Heritage Room.)



quanah taylor and barrQuanah Parker and Yellow Bear checked into the Pickwick Hotel at Main and 4th streets (at today’s Sundance Square Plaza) but were assigned to “room 78” over Taylor & Barr dry-goods store in the building at 405-407 Houston Street (at today’s Westbrook Building). Perhaps the hotel had no room available in its main building, or perhaps the hotel did not accommodate Indians in the main building. But the fact that the room over the dry-goods store was numbered “78” indicates that the room was considered part of the hotel.

quanah taylor and barr

That night—a Saturday—Yellow Bear went to bed about 10 p.m., but Parker went out on the town with the foreman of the Dan Waggoner ranch. About midnight Parker returned to room 78 and went to bed.

The next morning—December 20—the two men did not appear at the hotel for breakfast. Someone reported smelling gas in the Taylor & Barr building. Hotel employees could get no response from room 78. Alarmed, hotel employees forced open the door.

Yellow Bear was dead; Parker was near death from asphyxiation. The Gazette wrote: “. . . as the door swung back the rush of the deathly perfume through the aperture told the story. A ghastly spectacle met the eyes of the hotel employees. . . . Yellow Bear was stone dead . . . his companion . . . within but a stone’s throw of eternity.”



Parker later told the Daily Gazette that he had returned to room 78 that night and had found Yellow Bear in bed and the gas lamp extinguished. Parker said he had lit the lamp, undressed, and turned out the lamp. He woke in the night and smelled gas but merely pulled a bedcover over his nose and went back to sleep.

The newspaper quoted Parker: “Me wake up again—me awful sick. Me wake Yellow Bear and say, ‘me sick.’ Yellow Bear say, ‘Me sick, too.’ Me get up and fall about room. Me crazy.”

The initial Daily Gazette headline of December 21 had indicated that the theory was that while Parker had been gone Yellow Bear, unfamiliar with the technology, had blown out the flame of the lamp but had not turned off the gas supply. However, Parker said that after he had returned to the room he himself had turned off the gas lamp upon retiring. But he apparently had not fully closed the valve. After Parker awoke to the smell of gas and roused Yellow Bear, both men struggled across the floor but lost consciousness. Parker collapsed near a window, which provided him with enough fresh air to survive.

The December 22 Daily Gazette article quoted Burk Burnett’s anticipation of the nature of the burial rites for Yellow Bear.

By December 22 Parker was well enough to travel, and he returned by train to Indian Territory with the body of his father-in-law. Harrold is in Wilbarger County near the Red River. Clip is from the New York Times of December 25.

Roosevelt_Inauguration_ParadeFor Quanah Parker there was life after room 78. In 1905 he appeared in the inaugural parade of President Teddy Roosevelt with chiefs Buckskin Charlie of the Ute, American Horse and Hollow Horn Bear of the Sioux, Little Plume of the Blackfeet, and warrior Geronimo of the Apache. A month later when Roosevelt visited Texas and Oklahoma he invited Quanah Parker to participate in a wolf hunt. (Photo from Wikipedia.)

quanah car 3-11-09

In 1909 Quanah Parker took his first automobile ride in Burk Burnett’s car. Parker and “his band” were in town to perform at the Fat Stock Show. Clip is from the March 11 Star-Telegram.

quanah obit 2-24 11 Quanah Parker, who on December 20, 1885 had been, the Daily Gazette wrote, “within but a stone’s throw of eternity,” would live another quarter-century. He died on February 23, 1911. Clip is from the February 24 Star-Telegram.

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who found an article about the event I described above. Called "At the Pickwick a “Deathly Perfume”: A “Noble Red Man Succumbs”

It appears that the movie I described was of an actual event that took place, t the Pickwick Hotel a “Deathly Perfume”: A “Noble Red Man Succumbs”
Posted on December 20, 2015 by hometown
On December 19, 1885 Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and his father-in-law, Chief Yellow Bear, came to Fort Worth. Yellow Bear was father of Wec-Keah, Quanah Parker’s first wife.