Day Trips
Fort Lancaster was acquired by the state in 1965 and, after years of archeological exploration, hosts a very informative interpretive museum
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., Sept. 28, 2007
Fort Lancaster, on the old San Antonio to El Paso road outside of Sheffield, Texas, survives with the same kind of tenacity exhibited by the men who built the lonely military encampment. The crumbling rock-and-adobe ruins stand out against the rugged hills of the Chihuahua Desert like sun-bleached headstones.
It was the fort's isolation that doomed it and protected the last physical evidence of its existence.
After gold was discovered in California in 1849, the western movement of settlers became a steady stream of wagons crossing the country through Texas. The upper road left San Antonio through Fredericksburg and was considered the longer but safer route. The lower road through Castroville was shorter by several days if the Apache Indians or bandits didn't get you and you didn't run out of water. The trails converged near Fort Stockton before continuing on to El Paso.
Lancaster was established in 1855 near a crossing of the Pecos River to protect travelers, the mail, and freight along the southern government road. Standing at the replica flagpole in the center of the empty parade ground, a visitor can feel the ghosts of previous travelers and imagine that the landscape has changed very little in 150 years. To the west and south of the site, the land drops off into the deep Pecos River Valley before rising into rolling hills dotted with gnarly greenery. To the east and north, the canyon climbs to the oak groves of the Edwards Plateau and the Texas Hill Country. A stagecoach passenger wrote home that it seemed that everything on the inhospitable landscape would bite, stick, or cut.
At its peak, the fort had 300 occupants and 20 buildings, including two-story, stone barracks. Until Fort Stockton was established in 1859, Fort Lancaster was the only military post on the 300-mile-plus trail between Fort Clark (at today's Brackettville) and Fort Davis. Supplies to the soldiers were sometimes delivered by camels from Camp Verde, near Kerrville.
Life at the camp was as harsh as you might imagine. Time in the brig after a drunken binge was often preferable to patrol duty or chasing hostiles on the back of a mule or on foot. All things considered, detachments of the 1st U.S. Infantry did a respectable job of keeping the wagon trail open until Texas seceded from the Union in 1861.
During the Civil War, the fort was occupied briefly by state militia and Confederate troops. It wasn't until after the war that the military installation earned the distinction as the only fort in Texas to be attacked by Indians. The post was reactivated as a substation of Fort Stockton with a detachment of infantry and cavalry manned with African-American buffalo soldiers when the battle occurred.
In the afternoon the day after Christmas 1867, 900 Kickapoo warriors silently surrounded the fort. The Indians were still smarting from an attack by soldiers on a camp near Del Rio that they felt was undeserved. The unit's commander later reported that the force possibly included Mexicans and former Confederate "renegades." Although they lost their horses to the marauders, the more than 100 soldiers and officers held off the attackers with only five killed.
By 1874 the Army had moved farther west and north chasing Indians, and the post was abandoned. Much of the masonry was used to build the town of Sheffield eight miles to the west of the fort. Bypassed by Interstate 10 in the 1980s, the village of 400 residents doesn't have much except oil-field service shops. Still, Highway 290 makes a scenic 25-mile loop off the interstate into the river valley. A rest area east of the fort offers an expansive view of the terrain.
Fort Lancaster State Historic Site was acquired by the state in 1965 and, after years of archeological exploration, hosts a very informative, interpretive museum. This is still a very lonely duty station. Although the front gates to the ruins on Highway 290 are open Thursday through Monday, 8am to 5pm, there isn't always someone there to open the museum. This is a problem because that's where the restrooms are. For information, call 915/836-4391 or go to www.tpwd.state.tx.us.
848th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips" 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
