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Fort McKavett, Texas |
This Site:
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Fort McKavett, which lies a few miles east of the eastern Schleicher County line, was built in 1852 to protect the early pioneer families settling in this remote West Texas wilderness. This was before Schleicher County was established, and the surrounding area was also under the protection of the military fort. The land was cheap in this part of Texas, but the price of losing lives to hostile Indians was sometimes great. The fort closed in 1859 because
most of the settlers found this area too remote and unsettled. The first name given to the fort
was “Camp San Saba”. A small town site near the fort was supposed to
be named “Lehnesburg” after a German immigrant, but got stuck with
the name, “Scab town”. The town site fit the name. The military reactivated the
post as, “Fort McKavett” in 1868, after the Civil War. In 1880 the
town site, with a less obnoxious name, had a school, a church and
several shops. In 1883 the fort closed again as
hostile Indians were gone. The need for Military protection was gone
also. This time, however, the families stayed in the area and
continued to grow. One of the events associated
with Fort McKavett is the Black Buffalo Soldiers that served in the
military at the fort in the 1870’s and 1880’s. The ruins of the old fort were
in pretty good shape in 1950, mainly because they had been built
using local limestone rock. The State of Texas decided to restore as
many of these buildings as possible, and make the site into a State
Historical Park. In 1968 the park opened. There are now over
twenty-five restored buildings. On the third weekend of March,
the past comes alive at Fort McKavett with a living history
enactment performed by volunteer groups playing the roles of buffalo
soldiers, cavalry officers, laundresses, wagon masters, hunters and
settlers who once populated the fort.
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