Fort Duncan Infantry Barracks
Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built about 1868, soon after the U.S. Army's post-Civil War reoccupation of Fort Duncan, this building played a part in aviation history when the first military cross-country flight, from Fort McIntosh in Laredo, landed here in 1911. By 1932 the Army abandoned the post. Six years later the city of Eagle Pass purchased it and leased the barracks to the local council of Boy Scouts. In 1939 the building became the Fort Duncan Country Club and remained as such except during World War II when it was also an officers club for the Eagle Pass Army Air Force Advanced Flying School. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built around 1868 after the U.S. Army reoccupied Fort Duncan following the Civil War, this barracks witnessed aviation history in 1911 when the Army's first military cross-country flight, launched from Fort McIntosh in Laredo, landed nearby. The Army abandoned the post by 1932, and Eagle Pass later turned the barracks into a country club and Boy Scout lodge. During World War II it doubled as an officers' club for the Eagle Pass Army Air Force Advanced Flying School.
Why it matters
The building links the frontier Army's border defenses to the earliest days of military flight, a fitting overlap for a region that kept serving the nation's aviators into the modern era.
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Related events
- · First military cross-country flight (1911)
Themes & tags
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