FORT CONCHO MUSEUM
San Angelo, Texas
A people who take no pride in thenoble achievements of remote ancestrywill never achieve anythingworthy to be remembered with prideby remote descendants.—Macaulay
The Department of the Interior onOctober 7, 1961 designated this Fortas a National Historic Landmark.
Fort Concho
1867-1889
Fort Concho
ITS WHY AND WHEREFORE
J. N. Gregory
Cover by A. J. Redd
First Printing 1957
Second Printing 1962
Third Printing 1970
NEWSFOTO YEARBOOKS
San Angelo, Texas
Dedicated
to the pioneer
men and women
of our Southwest.
FOREWORD
Many people who visit the Fort Concho Museum and look overthe parade ground and buildings of old Fort Concho, naturally askthe question, “Why did the United States Government build a fortin this place, and what did the fort accomplish?”
The object of this pamphlet is to answer that question, and topresent the answer to the inquiring visitor at as small a cost as theprinter 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 in1856, not too accurate from a geographic standpoint, but as accurateas the knowledge of the times allowed. The other map,accurate from the geographic point of view, endeavors to show thelocations of some thirty-four forts and camps that were establishedand built by our War Department on the Texas Frontier duringthe Indian days.
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that brought to a close thewar between the United States and Mexico, February 2, 1848, andthe subsequent Gadsden Purchase of 1853, set the plan for thepresent boundaries between the two countries. A vast area ofplains, deserts and mountains, an unmapped and untraveled wildernesswas now owned by the Northern Republic. It was inhabitedmostly by Comanche, Apache, Kiowa and other warlike Indiantribes, and it stretched from the settlements of South and EastTexas, and from the lower Missouri River area to the new Americansettlements 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 wordpassed around quickly, and the first modern international gold rushwas on. It put the first sizeable amounts of precious metals intothe coffers of the nations of the world since the Spanish Conquistadoresransacked the treasure houses of Peru and Mexico. It broughtabout modern mining practices, and before the end of the century,the search for gold was so international and intense that comparablestrikes had been made in South Africa, Australia, Canada andAlaska, resulting