Fort Duncan
Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established by Captain S. Burbank, First U. S. Infantry, March 27, 1849 as a protection to Western communication. Garrisoned by federal troops until March 20, 1861 and since 1868. Now known as Camp Eagle Pass. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fort Duncan was established in 1849 by Captain S. Burbank of the First U.S. Infantry to guard the Rio Grande frontier and the western lines of communication opened after the Mexican-American War. Federal troops garrisoned the post until the eve of the Civil War in 1861 and returned in 1868, and it later became known as Camp Eagle Pass. It stood as a linchpin of American military presence on the border for more than a century.
Why it matters
Border forts like Duncan projected federal power across the newly won Southwest, anchoring settlement, commerce, and the contested boundary between the United States and Mexico.
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Related people
- · S. Burbank
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Duncan
Eagle Pass, TX
Established in 1849 on the Rio Grande, Fort Duncan guarded the California emigrant trail and anchored campaigns against the Lipan Apache in the newly won Southwest. Its long life mirrored the era's conflicts: abandoned and regarrisoned amid border raids, briefly held as a Confederate "Rio Grande Station" during the Civil War, and later home to the Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts organized here in 1870. Reoccupied during the Mexican border troubles of 1916 and used as a World War I training camp, it finally became a city park in 1938.
Site of Original Post Cemetery
Brackettville, TX
From 1856 into the 1880s this limestone-walled ground was the burying place for Fort Clark, a frontier Army post guarding the Texas–Mexico border country. Among the dozens laid to rest here were a young West Point lieutenant who died in 1857 and Pvt. Peter Corrigan, the lone fatality of Col. Ranald Mackenzie's 1873 cross-border raid into Mexico. When a new cemetery opened south of the post in 1880 the site fell inactive, and in 1946 all its dead were reinterred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Commanding Officer's Quarters
Brackettville, TX
Fort Clark was founded as a U.S. Army post in June 1852 to guard the Texas frontier, and in 1873-74 Army engineers built a row of officers' houses, of which this was the commanding officer's quarters. Its occupants included Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, the aggressive cavalry commander of the Indian Wars, and Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, later famed for his stand in the Philippines during World War II. The house keeps its central entry, wood-frame porch, dormers, and four boldly capped chimneys.
Officers' Row Quarters
Fort Clark Springs, TX
Fort Clark began in 1852 as a U.S. Army garrison of crude log and palisade huts, gradually rebuilt in quarried stone from 1857 onward. Built in 1873–74 as duplexes for two officers' families each, these eight stone residences—with three large rooms per floor, twin fireplaces, and fifty-five-foot porches—reflect frontier military design adapted to local stone and climate. The post was deactivated in 1946 and later became the private community of Fort Clark Springs, where the old quarters were eventually sold to residents.