Sheffield – Traveling west in Texas, it doesn’t take long for things to start getting desolate. Just 240 miles from the Alamo City, you’ll find Fort Lancaster. Here, the wind whips between the plateaus while every little thing fights for survival. That includes the westward travelers who established this fort situated between the Texas Hill Country and the Chihuahuan Desert back in 1855. “There’s so many stories to tell of Fort Lancaster,” said David Martinez. “I think that’s one of the best parts about it.”
David is the Educator Interpreter for Fort Lancaster. Originally from the Rio Grande Valley, David is adjusting to life out on the frontier. “In a way, it was sort of a fulfilling of some of my childhood dreams, living out west,” said David. “Living in Texas, the American Cowboys, perhaps one of the most idolized figures. And out here, that’s as close as I can get right now.”
David has a master’s degree in history and his passion for this place is as expansive as the landscape. “Fort Lancaster is a very essential component of Texas history,” said David. “I liken it to sort of an intersection of many avenues of history. This was a federal army installation at one point. The Camel Corps passed through here at one point. It was a former Confederate army installation maintained by Confederate Texans. The Buffalo Soldiers were here, and it’s the only site within the state of Texas that’s a fort and simultaneously a battleground.”
Expansion to the west came fast and furious for Texas prior to the Civil War, and that’s how Fort Lancaster got its start. “Fort Lancaster was established in 1855 to protect the San Antonio-San Diego Trail and mail coaches ran by through here,” explained David. “And it was also a military garrison to protect against the Native Americans in the region. There’s a lot of evidence of native habitation out here in Pecos River Valley. When the US Army was surveying Fort Lancaster in 1849, they noted that there was evidence of Native Americans out here, and especially along the Live Oak Creek, which is the water source of Fort Lancaster. So because of that, Fort Lancaster was established right here because of the freshwater source.”
Around 1858, two companies of the First Infantry Regiment Garrison with over 160 men were stationed here. “There are two sets of barracks here on site,” said David. “There were the company K Barracks, and the company H Barracks. And it’s a mixture of limestone brick and adobe. So that reflects in its condition today. And something that aided in its longevity is the fact that it was made out of limestone and not Adobe. Had it been made out of Adobe, like most of this building, it would’ve all been weathered away.”
The fort was functioning just fine until a little skirmish between the north and the south took place in our country leaving US forces scrambling. “So in 1861, Texas joins the Confederacy and Fort Lancaster receives their orders to evacuate,” said David. “So March 20th is the official last day that US troops are here at Fort Lancaster, and they actually marched on foot to the coast of Texas to Indianola, hoping to make their escape. After 1861, Fort Lancaster never really achieves that same status of being a fully operational fort.”
After the end of the Civil War, the fort would return to the hands of the Union, who were trying to reunify the country after several highly divisive years. “Fort Lancaster had been abandoned in 1862 by Confederate Texans, and as an effort to reestablish the US government’s presence in the southwest in Texas, the Buffalo Soldiers were part of that mission to sort of bring the US government back to West Texas,” said David. “They had the odds stacked against them. However, it speaks to their tenacity, to the fact that they did so well in their mission and they succeeded, especially with the Battle of Fort Lancaster and defending their post and surviving such inconvenient odds for them.”
The only known attack on Fort Lancaster took place during the Buffalo Soldiers’ time here, and they were greatly outnumbered. “It was two years after the Civil War ended in 1867 and a garrison of about 40 Buffalo soldiers held their ground against a force of about 900 Kickapoo Indians,” said David. “As you can imagine, it was quite the spectacle for the Buffalo soldiers and often in that time period, enlisted men, it was very typical for soldiers to enlist and throughout their entire enlistment period, never see any forms of combat or engagement. It varied, of course, from post to post, but that battle really must’ve been something else for the gentlemen who were here during that time.”
The corral that came under attack that day still stands. “The primary reason that the Kickapoo Indians attacked Fort Lancaster was actually for the horses that the Buffalo soldiers, the Cavalrymen had brought with them,” said David. “You can imagine there’s gunfire coming from the company H Barracks. There’s gunfire coming here from the corral, and as the Buffalo soldiers were trying to maintain and get control of the situation, the horses stampeded out that way, and the Kickapoo Indians gave chase. And that was perhaps a saving grace here at Fort Lancaster.”
In a world much different from the one we have today, just simply traveling west was a harrowing experience for families and for soldiers. “Fort Lancaster is also, in a way, hallowed ground because we have a cemetery here on post,” said David. “We don’t know the identities of all of these graves, but it’s evidence that traveling out west and living on the western frontier was no walk in the park. Child mortality was high. People often got sick of pneumonia and perished. And here at Fort Lancaster, we try our best to preserve this site and not just keep the memory of the soldiers who worked here alive, but also to maintain the memory of the people who are buried here at Fort Lancaster.”
Taking some time to explore Fort Lancaster and trying to comprehend what life was like for those who defended it and those who traveled through it make this historical stop that’s well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List. “The forts were a pretty important component of not just the United States history, but Texas as well, as Americans traveled and settled out west,” said David. “And Fort Lancaster being a battleground, it shouldn’t be forgotten. Fort Lancaster sort of is a remnant of this interesting period of American history, makes it very much worth the visit.”