Camp Verde General Store and Post Office
Camp Verde, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mercantile business opened 1857 as Williams Community Store, serving trade around Camp Verde Army Post (site of U.S. War Department's 1857-69 camel experiment). Post office opened in 1887. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This mercantile business opened in 1857 as the Williams Community Store, serving trade around the Camp Verde Army Post—headquarters of the War Department's famous 1857–69 experiment in using camels for military transport across the Southwest. A post office followed in 1887. The store links everyday frontier commerce to one of the most curious ventures in U.S. Army history.
Why it matters
The store connects the ordinary life of a Hill Country outpost to the U.S. Camel Corps, a bold attempt to conquer the distances of America's arid frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · U.S. Army Camel Corps experiment
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
One Mile to Ruins of Camp Verde
Camp Verde, TX
Established by the U.S. Army in 1855, this frontier post became the headquarters of one of the nineteenth century's most unusual experiments: a herd of camels imported at the urging of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to test overland transport across the arid Southwest. The scheme proved impractical, and the post changed hands with the times — surrendered to the Confederacy in 1861, reoccupied by the U.S. Army in 1865, and abandoned in 1869.
Site of Camp Verde
Kerrville, TX
The U.S. Army opened Camp Verde in 1855 to guard the Texas frontier, and the next year it became headquarters for one of the country's strangest military experiments: some forty camels imported at Secretary of War Jefferson Davis's urging, tested as pack animals for crossing the arid Southwest before the idea was judged impractical. Confederate forces took the post in 1861; the U.S. Army returned in 1865 and abandoned it in 1869. The camel corps remains one of the most memorable curiosities of the antebellum army.
Camp Verde Barracks
Camp Verde, TX
Camp Verde grew up around a U.S. Army post established in the 1850s in the Texas Hill Country, best remembered as headquarters of the War Department's remarkable experiment in using camels for desert transport. The barracks here housed soldiers stationed on this frontier outpost in the years around the Civil War. Though the inscription bears only a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark medallion, the site anchors one of the more unusual chapters of the antebellum army.
Penateka Comanches
Center Point, TX
The Penateka, or "honey eaters," were the southernmost band of the Comanche, ranging across the Edwards Plateau and following the buffalo on which they depended for food, clothing, and shelter. Renowned horsemen, they made settlement west of this area perilous for decades. Pressure from Texas Rangers and the U.S. Army's Second Cavalry, reservation removals, and the Red River War of 1874–75 forced the Comanche onto reservation lands, where the breakup of holdings in 1901 scattered the people — who have since worked to rebuild their shared culture.