In the late 1840s, the United States acquired vast new territory as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War. Gold was discovered in California, and frontier entrepreneurs sought overland routes with available water from Texas to California. One such route, the lower portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road, passed through present-day Fort Davis, via Limpia Creek.
Travel through the area was risky. The land was occupied by Mescalero Apache, and was a close to the route used by the Comanche and Kiowa raiders on their way to Mexico. In order to secure the route, the U.S. army was called on for protection. In October, 1854, Lieutenant Colonel Washington Seawell, with six companies of the 8th Infantry, was ordered to build a fort at the mouth of a pleasant box canyon near an early U.S. Army engineers encampment known as "Painted Comanche Camp" (named for pictographs that adorned nearby cottonwood trees). The post was to be named Fort Davis for the Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.
While guarding the mail and pursuing raiders, soldiers constructed a primitive fort using oak, cottonwood and pine rough-sawn planks. Six stone barracks were added in 1856. Today, only the foundations of the first fort remain.
With the advent of the Civil War, federal troops left the fort. They returned in 1867 when Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Merritt marched up Limpia Creek with four companies of the 9th U.S. Cavalry, a newly organized regiment of African-American men. Fort Davis was one of the many posts where African-American soldiers served in the U.S. Army. Those units, the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry and the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry, compiled a notable record of military accomplishments during the Indian Wars. Finally, with the settlement of the West, the army closed the fort in 1891.
The fort began to come alive again in 1961, when it was authorized as a unit of the National Park Service. After the property was acquired, preservation and restoration work began. Today, historians regard Fort Davis National Historic Site as one of the best surviving examples of a southwestern Indian Wars era frontier military post.
Travel through the area was risky. The land was occupied by Mescalero Apache, and was a close to the route used by the Comanche and Kiowa raiders on their way to Mexico. In order to secure the route, the U.S. army was called on for protection. In October, 1854, Lieutenant Colonel Washington Seawell, with six companies of the 8th Infantry, was ordered to build a fort at the mouth of a pleasant box canyon near an early U.S. Army engineers encampment known as "Painted Comanche Camp" (named for pictographs that adorned nearby cottonwood trees). The post was to be named Fort Davis for the Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.
While guarding the mail and pursuing raiders, soldiers constructed a primitive fort using oak, cottonwood and pine rough-sawn planks. Six stone barracks were added in 1856. Today, only the foundations of the first fort remain.
With the advent of the Civil War, federal troops left the fort. They returned in 1867 when Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Merritt marched up Limpia Creek with four companies of the 9th U.S. Cavalry, a newly organized regiment of African-American men. Fort Davis was one of the many posts where African-American soldiers served in the U.S. Army. Those units, the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry and the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry, compiled a notable record of military accomplishments during the Indian Wars. Finally, with the settlement of the West, the army closed the fort in 1891.
The fort began to come alive again in 1961, when it was authorized as a unit of the National Park Service. After the property was acquired, preservation and restoration work began. Today, historians regard Fort Davis National Historic Site as one of the best surviving examples of a southwestern Indian Wars era frontier military post.
Visit Fort Davis National Historic Site
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