Fort Clark is for everyone!

January 28, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight, very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday. --- John Wayne

Visitors, guests and residents of Fort Clark Springs, Brackettville, live for today and the soft promise of tomorrow. But all are surrounded by the century-old skeletal remains of “yesterday.”

One of the most unique blends of historical preservation and residential living is right in the back yard of any community within the LIVE! sphere of influence. Though Fort Clark Springs is technically a gated community, getting through the gate is easy. A visitor need only provide identification and a general target of interest – the Fort Clark Museum, for example.

And beyond the gate lies a mix of West Texas history, a huge, spring-fed swimming pool, motel rooms, a fine military museum, an 18-hole golf course, an RV campground, nature trails, a fitness center and spa, and a satisfying – though hidden – little café called Mimi’s.

But it’s the history of this remarkable outpost on the Texas frontier – spanning 94 years of Indian conflicts, a Civil War surrender, and cavalry preparations for two world wars – that captures the interest of all who take the time to get acquainted with Fort Clark and its distinguished list of military men and women.

“There’s a lot of name-dropping here, just because there were so many famous people that lived on Fort Clark, and so many more that became famous after they left,” explained Phil Coburn, Dec. 21. Coburn, 69, and his wife, Marie, moved to Fort Clark following his retirement from the Livermore National Laboratory, Calif., in 1990.

There, Coburn was a technical photographer for the nuclear weapons laboratory. Now, he is the contented curator of the Fort Clark Museum, and an enthusiastic, knowledgeable resident historian. Coburn can rattle off the names of a dozen or more military figures who carved a notch in their career with a stint at Fort Clark.

Even the most casual student of military notables will recognize the likes of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. John Bell Hood, and Lt. Gen. James Longstreet. All served as junior or field grade officers of the U.S. Army at Fort Clark, as did Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan who later commanded the Union Army of the Potomac, and is still renowned as the inventor of the McClellan saddle.

Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday conducted court martial proceedings at Fort Clark, and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Gen. Philip Sheridan visited the post for secret meetings and inspections. “Sherman came here in the 1880s,” said Coburn. “He wanted the fort closed. This was a very expensive fort to build and maintain. But they closed Fort Duncan near Eagle Pass, instead.”

Later luminaries included Brig. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright (later full general), serving as post commander until he departed for war in the Philippines in 1940. Wainwright was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics on the infamous Island of Corregidor.

Gen. George S. “Old Blood and Guts” Patton Jr. was commander of the 5th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Clark for a six-month assignment, and his 1939, two-story quarters is finely preserved as are nearly all the beautiful limestone edifices along officers row. Patton’s boss here was Wainwright, as post commander, according to Coburn.

A slow driving or walking tour of the two sets of quarters encircling the “old parade ground” and the “new parade ground” is a rubber-necker’s dream, an opportunity to stroll through an active neighborhood where neighbors live as a community in buildings that offer insights to uncommon history belonging to the ages.

In other words, the Fort Clark Springs Association walking tour map and brochure is a license to stare from the street at private homes in the National Historic District, designated in 1979. The post is richly illuminated with Texas Historical Commission markers, and documented sites that range from horse-dipping vats to the Officers’ Bath House, and from the Commanding Officer’s Quarters to the Quartermaster Corral.

In addition, visitors can see the 1870s post bakery, powder magazine, blacksmith shop, stables, and infantry and cavalry barracks. A total of 45 buildings and facilities are on the self-guided tour itinerary, and another 11 sites are marked where history was made, now melted into the earth marked only – if at all – by evidence of foundations.

“The preservation is good here,” Coburn explained, “because these structures are being used and maintained, not neglected.” Most buildings in the historic district are original wood construction buildings. “The post theater, built in 1932, is the only steel-framed building here,” said Coburn. “The rest are wood-framed.”

Gone forever is material evidence of one of Fort Clark’s most interesting military episodes. Persecuted Seminole-Negro Indians had fled to Mexico in the mid-19th century, but their reputation as talented scouts was remembered. According to Coburn, the U.S. Army went south of the border to recruit them.

Historian and Fort Clark resident Bill Haenn called them “Fort Clark’s Most Heroic Unit” in his book, Fort Clark and Bracketville, Land of Heroes. The Seminole-Negro Scouts served at Fort Clark from 1872 to 1914, distinguishing their record in fights with Apache and Comanche Indians. Many relatives of these capable men still live in the area, and gather for reunions and celebrations.

The nearby town of Brackettville is historic, too, but shares the taint of many gateway communities that sprang up or thrived near old military installations. In 1883, commanders condemned Bracketville as “The Cesspool of the Garrison.” At the turn of the 20th century, an observer remembered Bracketville this way: “The only thing cheaper than a man’s life was a woman’s body.”

The post’s military usefulness diminished, then disappeared after the horse cavalry was disbanded in 1943, deemed no longer useful in modern warfare. The U.S. Army “surplused” the facility, and it was bought in 1946 by the Texas engineering and construction giant, Brown & Root, that took the place for “salvage.”

The next chapter in the legend, according to Coburn, was written by corporate wives who intervened against demolition. With more preservation and less destruction, Brown & Root operated the fort as a corporate retreat for executives, outstanding employees, and favored clients.

In 1971, Brown & Root sold interest in the fort to Nat Mendelsohn, North American Towns of Texas, for $1 million. Eventually, the Fort Clark Springs Association was formed and bought the 1,600-acre fort, and survive as current operators. Coburn said that 825 families and individuals populate the area now, “But that nearly doubles in the wintertime,” he chuckled.

The Fort Clark Museum is open Saturday and Sunday afternoons, 1-4 p.m. But, Coburn’s job as curator is a labor of love, and he’s available to open it whenever a request comes. Coburn can be contacted through the Fort Clark Springs Association office, 830-563-2493 or toll free at 1-800-937-1590.