The Frontier Forts: Guarding West Texas

Officers' row (ruins), looking west, before the National Park Service acquired Fort Davis National Historic Site.

The Frontier Forts: Guarding West Texas

Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas.

Last time, we crossed the Pecos River and entered one of the most remarkable landscapes in our state, the Trans-Pecos.

We discovered a Texas of mountains instead of rolling hills...

deserts instead of forests...

vast distances instead of crowded settlements.

It is a beautiful country.

But it could also be a dangerous one.

Today, I'd like to answer a simple question.

How did people safely travel through this immense wilderness?

The answer lies in a network of frontier forts that stretched across West Texas.