Building 98, Fort D.A. Russell
Marfa, Presidio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Constructed in 1920, Building 98 housed the Officers Club and Bachelor Officers Quarters for Fort D.A. Russell. During the latter years of World War II, from 1943 to 1945, German prisoners of war from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps were housed at the fort, and evidence of their ornate artwork can be found on the building's interior walls. Murals depict views from a courtyard and include scenes typical of west Texas. Constructed of adobe and concrete, Building 98 features a pebbledash finish and an A-shaped footprint, with one courtyard completely enclosed and another enclosed on three sides. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2004
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1920, Building 98 served as the Officers Club and Bachelor Officers Quarters for Fort D.A. Russell near Marfa. In the final years of World War II, from 1943 to 1945, the fort held German prisoners of war from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps — and their ornate murals, depicting West Texas scenes, still survive on the building's interior walls. Its adobe-and-concrete construction and distinctive A-shaped footprint earned it recognition as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Why it matters
The POW murals make this remote West Texas fort an unexpected witness to World War II's global reach, preserving the artwork of enemy soldiers held on American soil.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1920 the Far West Texas borderlands still felt like a frontier with soldiers on it. The Mexican Revolution had spilled tension and violence across the Rio Grande through the 1910s, and the U.S. Army kept cavalry posts strung along the border to watch the long, empty miles. The post outside Marfa grew out of that era. It sat on the high grasslands of Presidio County, where the air is thin, the sky enormous, and the nearest city a long day's ride away.
Buildings like this one were the social heart of an Army post. An officers club and bachelor officers quarters gave young, unmarried officers a place to live, dine, and gather far from home. Building it from adobe and concrete made sense in a land of scorching days, cold nights, and scarce timber. Thick earthen walls hold the heat out in summer and keep it in when winter winds sweep across the plains.
Two decades later, the world came to Marfa. During World War II the United States held hundreds of thousands of Axis prisoners on its own soil, and Texas held more than any other state. Its wide open spaces, mild climate, and existing military posts made it a natural choice. Remote installations in West Texas suddenly found themselves guarding soldiers captured on the far side of the Atlantic.
People & events
The men who left their mark on these walls had fought in North Africa as part of the Afrika Korps, the German desert force made famous by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. After Axis forces in North Africa surrendered in Tunisia in 1943, large numbers of prisoners were shipped across the ocean to camps in the United States. Some of them ended up here, from 1943 to 1945, on the high desert of West Texas, a landscape not entirely unlike the dry country where they had been captured.
Prison life in American camps was generally orderly, and long hours of idleness left room for craft and creativity. Across the country, POWs carved, painted, built, and decorated. In Building 98, someone with real artistic skill turned plain interior walls into ornate murals. Some scenes look out from a courtyard. Others show the West Texas world around them, the landscapes and life these captive soldiers glimpsed beyond the fence.
Think about the strangeness of it: young men from Germany, defeated in the deserts of Libya and Tunisia, painting cowboy country on the walls of an American officers club. We usually know little about the individual artists behind murals like these, and the marker does not name them. What survives is their work, a quiet, human record left by people who were, officially, the enemy.
Its place in the American story
World War II is usually remembered through distant battlefields, but it reached into nearly every corner of the United States. The POW program was one of its most surprising chapters. Across the country, especially in the South and West, prisoners worked on farms, lived in camps near small towns, and became an everyday sight for Americans who had never been overseas. Building 98 is a rare place where that chapter is still visible in paint.
The murals also speak to how the United States treated captured enemy soldiers. America generally followed the Geneva Convention rules for prisoners of war, partly from principle and partly in the hope that American captives in Germany would be treated well in return. Prisoners who had time and materials to create art are part of that larger story.
Finally, the building reflects the long arc of the Army's presence on the Mexican border, from the uneasy years of the Mexican Revolution through the global war. A single structure, built for officers' dinners and dances, became a witness to how a world war could reshape even the most isolated places in America.
If you visit
Marfa is a small town with an outsized reputation. Today it is known for art, open skies, and a quiet desert beauty that draws travelers from around the world. The old fort grounds became part of that story after the artist Donald Judd acquired property there and turned former Army buildings into spaces for large-scale art. As you explore, you will notice how plain military architecture can feel startlingly modern in this setting.
Look at Building 98 itself before you think about what is inside. Note the pebbledash finish, the rough, stony texture of its exterior walls, and the A-shaped footprint with its enclosed courtyards. Access to the interior and the murals can vary, so check locally before you go rather than counting on going inside.
Marfa fits naturally into a Big Bend road trip. Fort Davis, the Davis Mountains, and Big Bend National Park are all within reach, and the drives between them are some of the most dramatic in Texas. Bring water, fill your tank when you can, and give yourself time. Distances out here are long, and the sunsets are worth stopping for.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Erwin Rommel
Related events
- · German POWs of the Afrika Korps in Texas
Themes & tags
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