My Favorite Place

Not many places in the Texas Mountain Trail region can put one as closely in touch with the past as the old fort at Fort Davis, now a National Historic Site. The fort is spectacularly located in the mouth of a small canyon, and it is the best-preserved 19th-century military post in the Southwest. The rows of buildings that are there now were built in the 1870s and 80s to house the soldiers – many of them African-American cavalry troopers – who protected travelers on the San Antonio-El Paso road. My wife and I like to walk to the fort from our house in town early in the morning and sit on the porch of the hospital, which gives us a view of the officers’ quarters, the parade ground, and the barracks with virtually no 21st-century intrusions. You can almost hear the jingle of harness and the shouted orders that would have echoed off the surrounding cliffs as the soldiers assembled for morning parade a hundred and twenty years ago.

--Lonn Taylor, Fort Davis

To learn more about the Fort Davis National Historic Site, click here.

For more information about the Fort Davis community, click here.

Would you like to write an entry for "My Favorite Place" about the Texas Mountain Trail region? Write us at info@texasmountaintrail.org for more information!