Fort Concho is a former United States Army installation and National Historic Landmark District located in San Angelo, Texas. It was established in November 1867 at the confluence of the North and South Concho Rivers, on the routes of the Butterfield Overland Mail Route and Goodnight–Loving Trail, and was an active military base for the next 22 years. Fort Concho was the principal base of the 4th Cavalry from 1867 to 1875 and then the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry from 1875 to 1882. The troops stationed at Fort Concho participated in Ranald S. Mackenzie's 1872 campaign, the Red River War in 1874, and the Victorio Campaign of 1879–1880.
The fort was abandoned in June 1889, and over the next 20 years was divided into residences and businesses, with the buildings repurposed or recycled for their materials. Efforts to preserve and restore Fort Concho began in the 1900s and resulted in the foundation of the Fort Concho Museum in 1929. The property has been owned and operated by the city of San Angelo since 1935. Fort Concho was named a National Historic Landmark on July 4, 1961, and is one of the best-preserved examples of the military installations built by the US Army in Texas.
The Fort Concho Historic District covers the fort's original grounds and 23 buildings, some of which are the oldest in San Angelo. , about 55,000 people visit the fort annually.
Operation by the US military
Fort Concho was established during the American colonization of Texas in the 19th century, a process that began in the 1820s with the immigration of Anglo-Americans into Spanish, later Mexican, Texas. Europeans first reached the Concho River valley in the 16th century. The Spanish established contact and then traded with the Jumano people, who inhabited the valley until they were driven out of it by the Apache peoples in the 1690s. The Apache were themselves expelled by the mid-18th century by the Comanche. However, in 1849, American colonists began crossing West Texas in large numbers to reach California, where gold had been discovered. To protect its citizens, the United States Army ordered the construction of a string of forts along the frontier's routes of travel from 1850 to 1852. Among those forts was Fort Chadbourne, established on October 28, 1852, and among those avenues was the Butterfield Overland Mail route, established in 1858 with Fort Chadbourne as one of its stations.
The beginning of the American Civil War in 1861 ended both enterprises. The Butterfield route moved out of Texas, and the federal government ceded its Texas forts to the Confederate States of America. Confederate Texas was unable to secure its territories, so as a consequence, white settlers retreated eastward throughout the war. After the end of the war in 1865, though, immigrants from the war-torn Southern States decamped for Texas. Many of these immigrants became cattle herders and followed routes such as the Goodnight–Loving Trail, established in 1866 on the Butterfield route – which brought large volumes of cattle through the Concho Valley.
Major General Philip Sheridan, appointed to command the postwar military district covering Texas and Louisiana on March 19, 1867, at first ignored reports of raiding by indigenous peoples, but later that year, the US Army was ordered to reoccupy its pre-war billets in Texas, and that May, Fort Chadbourne was reoccupied by the 4th Cavalry. Fort Chadbourne was, however, poorly supplied with water. The US Army decided to replace Fort Chadbourne with a new installation. They identified the junction of the Concho Rivers as an ideal site because of its proximity to the routes it was to guard and nearby grazing land, and the abundance of water.
In mid-1867, Major John Porter Hatch, commanding the 4th Cavalry, dispatched Lieutenant Peter M. Boehm to establish a camp on the Middle Concho, to the south of Fort Chadbourne. Captain Michael J. Kelly and 50 troopers established this camp, albeit on the North Concho, and remained there over the summer of 1867. On November 28, 1867, the 4th Cavalry's H Company departed from Fort Chadbourne for the Conchos. H Company's commander, Captain George G. Huntt, named the site of the new fort "Camp Hatch", but changed it at Hatch's request to "Camp Kelly" in January 1868 to honor Kelly, who had died on August 13, 1867, of typhoid fever. Construction of a permanent outpost began on a site north of the camp, which was named Fort Concho in March 1868 by Edward M. Stanton, United States Secretary of War.
Construction
Captain David W. Porter, assistant quartermaster of the Department of Texas, was tasked with constructing Fort Concho on December 10, 1867. Progress was slow, as all building materials had to be shipped in and there was frequent bickering among the fort's officers, Huntt and Porter included. Porter employed civilian masons and carpenters, but also oversaw the construction of Forts Griffin and Richardson. As such, he was often not present at the fort to direct building work. In March 1868, Porter was replaced at Fort Concho by Major George C. Cram, who built a temporary guardhouse. Cram was also frequently absent from the fort, and in the year of his arrival had the regional mail line superintendent, Major Ben Ficklin, arrested. The United States Postmaster General intervened and by August, Cram was reassigned and construction was handed to Captain Joseph Rendlebrock, the 4th Cavalry's quartermaster. By the end of the year, Rendlebrock had completed the commissary, quartermaster's storehouse, and a wing of the hospital.
The first permanent military structures on the fort grounds, five of the officer's residences and the first regimental barracks, were completed by August 1869. They were followed over the next year by two more officer's residences, another barracks, and a permanent guardhouse and stables. Hatch pushed for the completion of the fort through 1870–71, directing the building of a quartermaster's corral and a wagon shed. In February 1872, however, budget cuts by the US War Department resulted in the dismissal of the civilian workers and another lull in construction. By the end of the year, Fort Concho consisted of four barracks, eight officers' residences, the hospital, a magazine, bakery, several storehouses, workshops, and stables.
In 1875, the parade ground was cleared and a flagstaff placed in its center. In the process, the adjutant's office was moved to the headquarters building. It was replaced in short order with a stone command structure, the headquarters building, built in 1876. Another officers' residence was built in 1877, as were the foundations for another that went unfinished for lack of funding. This building was completed in February 1879 as the schoolhouse and chapel. It was the final permanent structure completed at Fort Concho. By 1879, the fort was an eight-company installation. Construction had, by 1877, cost the US Army $1 million ($, adjusted for inflation) on land it had leased. Thirty-nine permanent buildings were on the fort grounds by April 1889.
Base of the 4th Cavalry
In the first seven months of Fort Concho's existence, its garrison – numbering 129, out of a force of 3,672 in Texas, according to the 1869 reports of the War Department – were occupied by its plodding construction. This was the cause of much criticism by local Texas newspapers; the frontier continued to retreat in the remaining years of the 1860s. Meanwhile, outside of building work, the garrison patrolled, scouted, and escorted cattle herds and wagon trains on the San Antonio–El Paso Road. There was thus little combat in Texas, according to the US Army records. Inaction by the army, whose garrisons were poorly and irregularly supplied, and criticism of that inaction, continued into 1871. Beginning with the creation of the Department of Texas that March, however, US Army activity in Texas changed. Sheridan adopted a strategy of feinting and constant movement early in the year, and then punitive expeditions in the winter, when the tribes' ponies would be weakest. As part of Sheridan's plan, the garrisons of the Texas forts established subposts. Among these were Fort Chadbourne, which was reoccupied, and Camp Charlotte, on the Middle Concho.
On February 25, 1871, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie took command of the 4th Cavalry. He moved the regimental headquarters to Fort Richardson a month later, but kept a few companies at Fort Concho. These companies participated in an inconclusive campaign against the Kiowa from May to September 1871, returning to Fort Concho in November. Comanche and Kiowa raids became more frequent over the rest of 1871, prompting a number of expeditions that rarely saw Native Americans. A notable exception was a patrol carried out by Sergeant William Wilson from March 26 to 29, 1872, that led to the US Army's discovery of water in the Staked Plains and a large Comanche settlement at Mushaway Peak. Hatch, in charge of Fort Concho for Mackenzie, reported Wilson's findings, which were confirmed by another patrol by Captain Napoleon B. McLaughlen.
After Mackenzie and Hatch met with Brigadier General Christopher C. Augur, in command of the Department of Texas, Mackenzie and McLaughlen, commanding Companies D and I, departed from their respective installations on June 17. Over the following months, the 4th Cavalry explored the South Plains and fought the Comanche at the Battle of the North Fork on September 29. As a result of that battle, the 4th Cavalry captured 124 women and children, 116 of whom were taken back to Fort Concho on October 21. The captives were interned in the quartermaster's corral and remained there until the Department of Texas ordered their release on April 14, 1873. They departed Fort Concho on May 24 under escort from the 11th Infantry and arrived at Fort Sill on June 10.
On June 27, 1874, more than 200 indigenous warriors attacked a group of buffalo hunters camped at Adobe Walls, beginning the Red River War. In response, Augur ordered Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry back to Fort Concho in July. By August, Sheridan, now commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, ordered five expeditionary forces of more than 3,000 soldiers each into the South Plains. The southern force, under Mackenzie, left Fort Concho on August 23, 1874, with eight companies of the 4th Cavalry, four of the 10th Infantry, and one from the 11th Infantry. Over the following year, Mackenzie chased the Comanche to their base of operations in the Palo Duro Canyon and destroyed it on September 28. His force continued to patrol the area over the winter, preventing the Comanche from rebuilding their supplies and forcing their return to their reservation.
Base of the 10th Cavalry
By 1875, Fort Concho had become one of the main US Army bases in Texas, but early in the year, the 4th Cavalry was transferred to Fort Sill to keep the South Plains nations on their reservation. They were replaced at Fort Concho by the 10th Cavalry, an all-black regiment commanded by Colonel Benjamin Grierson. He arrived at Fort Concho on April 17, 1875, and established the regimental headquarters there. Stationed at Forts Concho, Stockton, Davis, Quitman, and Clark, and their subposts, the 10th Cavalry was tasked with patrolling the frontier, escorting wagons and settlers, and mounting expeditions. Beginning in 1877, starving Plains tribes began killing buffalo hunters and raiding white settlements. In response, Grierson sent Captain Nicholas M. Nolan and a company of the 10th to subdue the raiders. Nolan set out in July, and achieved nothing but the death of four soldiers from the 10th Cavalry's Company A.