: Fort Concho: Its Why and Wherefore by Gregory James N James Noble - Texas History 1846-1950; Comanche Indians Texas; Fortification Texas Maps; Fort Concho (Tex.) History; Texas Maps

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The Department of the Interior on October 7, 1961 designated this Fort as a National Historic Landmark.

Fort Concho ITS WHY AND WHEREFORE

J. N. Gregory

First Printing 1957 Second Printing 1962 Third Printing 1970

Dedicated to the pioneer men and women of our Southwest.

FOREWORD

Many people who visit the Fort Concho Museum and look over the parade ground and buildings of old Fort Concho, naturally ask the question, "Why did the United States Government build a fort in this place, and what did the fort accomplish?"

The object of this pamphlet is to answer that question, and to present the answer to the inquiring visitor at as small a cost as the printer makes possible.

Two maps of Texas will be found in the envelope at the back of the pamphlet. The smaller is a reproduction of one published in 1856, not too accurate from a geographic standpoint, but as accurate as the knowledge of the times allowed. The other map, accurate from the geographic point of view, endeavors to show the locations of some thirty-four forts and camps that were established and built by our War Department on the Texas Frontier during the Indian days.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that brought to a close the war between the United States and Mexico, February 2, 1848, and the subsequent Gadsden Purchase of 1853, set the plan for the present boundaries between the two countries. A vast area of plains, deserts and mountains, an unmapped and untraveled wilderness was now owned by the Northern Republic. It was inhabited mostly by Comanche, Apache, Kiowa and other warlike Indian tribes, and it stretched from the settlements of South and East Texas, and from the lower Missouri River area to the new American settlements on the Pacific Coast.

Great events were in the making when in California in 1848, gold nuggets were found in the tailrace of Sutter's Mill. The word passed around quickly, and the first modern international gold rush was on. It put the first sizeable amounts of precious metals into the coffers of the nations of the world since the Spanish Conquistadores ransacked the treasure houses of Peru and Mexico. It brought about modern mining practices, and before the end of the century, the search for gold was so international and intense that comparable strikes had been made in South Africa, Australia, Canada and Alaska, resulting in fresh redistribution of populations, not only in the United States but also in other portions of the world. The problems accompanying such redistribution were plentiful, and they are still plaguing us to this day.

But the lure that led men to our West was not gold alone. The El Dorado of man's dreams, be it a gold vein, oil patch, store on Main Street, cattle ranch, or farm in Peaceful Valley, can very well lie in any new and unexplored lands. So it was then. Few men could afford for themselves, families and belongings the cost of passage by sailing ship, around the Horn or by portage at the Isthmus of Panama, from Boston, New York, Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston or Indianola, to San Francisco. Besides that, a fellow who was bent on making a trip liked to look over the country lying between home and his proposed destination. So, many found their El Dorado, not on the Pacific Coast but along the trails between the Great River and the Pacific Ocean.

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