History of Fort McKavett: From Camp San Saba to State Historic Site

Fort McKavett, twenty-two miles southwest of Menard in southwestern Menard County, was established by the United States War Department as Camp San Saba (not to be confused with Camp San Saba in McCulloch County) on March 14, 1852. As early as 1849 Col. Joseph E. Johnston led a party of topographical engineers to West Texas to locate suitable protection and proposed routes westward. When Lt. William H. C. Whiting was tasked with laying out the upper road to El Paso del Norte, which became known as the Upper Emigrant Road, which would include a chain of military posts to be established in 1849, Whiting recommended that one of these frontier posts should be located at the site of Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas (popularly known as San Sabá Presidio). The fort was established in response to Gen. Persifor F. Smith’s order on December 16, 1851, to construct two military posts, one on the San Saba River and the other on the Concho River, to protect West Texas settlers and serve as a rest stop for immigrants heading to California. The camp covered about 2,373 acres near the right bank of the San Saba River, about two miles from its source. The first troops garrisoned at Fort McKavett were Companies B, D, E, F, and H of the Eighth U.S. Infantry under Lt. Col. Thomas Staniford. The early post returns state that the encampment was first referred to as “Post” or “Camp” on the San Saba, but by October 1852 the name Camp McKavett was used, and by February 1853 became Fort McKavett. The new name was probably chosen in honor of Capt. Henry McKavett of the Eighth U. S. Infantry who was killed in the battle of Monterrey in 1846 (see MEXICAN WAR).

Fort McKavett was built with local stone and lumber, and soldiers were given extra duty pay and rations for their labor. They constructed the stores, a hospital, and living quarters. Smaller buildings were erected around the parade ground. In the summer of 1853, during Col. William G. Freeman’s inspection, the fort was commanded by Maj. Edmund B. Alexander of the Eighth Infantry, who had five companies that fielded 185 men. Several other infantry companies were later stationed there to protect frontier settlers from Comanches. The post was abandoned on March 22, 1859, when the First U.S. Infantry left for Camp Cooper due to conflicts over the Indian reservations in Texas and the fact that travelers to California began using a more southerly route. Early in 1862 the fort served as a temporary prisoner-of-war camp for Union troops who had surrendered U.S. posts at the start of the Civil War. Fort McKavett was again abandoned in April 1862 when the frontier defense line was pulled back more than sixty miles east, but patrols of Confederate and state troops used the fort intermittently through the end of the war.

On April 1, 1868, Capt. Eugene B. Beaumont with Company A of the Fourth U.S. Cavalry reopened Fort McKavett as a military post when hostilities between local Comanches and the settlers increased. These troops were soon joined by Company F of the Thirty-fifth U.S. Infantry. Much of the post was in ruins when Fort McKavett reopened, and the troops lived in tents for the next year or two while the facilities were rebuilt under the command of Ranald S. Mackenzie, colonel of the Forty-first U.S. Infantry (Black soldiers), who arrived on March 16, 1869, with two companies from Fort Clark. Mackenzie also employed a saddler, five carpenters, six masons, one blacksmith, one wheelwright, and one clerk. The completed fort had four barracks, twelve officers' quarters, a magazine, a hospital, a guardhouse, a bakery, two storehouses, a post office, three stables, a headquarters building, a forage house, and a thirty-acre garden. Supplies came by wagon from San Antonio. When the Twenty-fourth U.S. Infantry was formed (in part, from the Forty-first Infantry), Fort McKavett became the headquarters of the new regiment under the command of Mackenzie. Known as one of the famed units of the Buffalo Soldiers, the Twenty-fourth became one of the most effective Black regiments in the service.

In 1871, during his inspection tour, Gen. William T. Sherman called Fort McKavett "the prettiest post in Texas." After the second battle of Adobe Walls in 1874, the military presence at Fort McKavett was no longer essential, but the post continued to serve as a central supply depot and furnished provisions for military operations and scientific and mapping expeditions. In 1876 Elliott Roosevelt, the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt, spent a month as a guest at Fort McKavett. On June 30, 1883, Fort McKavett was finally abandoned by Capt. Hugh A. Theaker and Company D, Sixteenth U.S. Infantry.

After the military abandoned the fort, it became available for civilian use. Most of the buildings either were used by townspeople for other purposes or fell into ruin. A Texas Centennial Marker was erected at the site of Fort McKavett in 1936. Efforts for the state to preserve the site began as early as the late 1930s but were finally prioritized in the 1960s.  In 1966 a Menard group established Fort McKavett Restoration, Inc., a non-profit organization, to aid in the acquisition of buildings of the former post and promote restoration efforts. Fort McKavett State Historical Park, operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, opened in 1968, and many of the buildings were acquired by the state and restored. The site was recorded on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Operational control of then-named Fort McKavett State Historic Site was transferred to the Texas Historical Commission in 2008.