Fort Davis, TX
Fort Davis is a small unincorporated town of about 1200 in the Davis mountains of West Texas. We had visited here about 30 years ago and thought it would be a good place to stop on our way east after Carlsbad and El Paso. It is an interesting town with a short walking tour of some of the prominent buildings from the towns history along with the remains of Fort Davis – a key post in the defense system of west Texas, and a small museum to find out more about the history of the area. For such a small town there are actually several restaurants in the area. We really liked the Fort Davis Drug Store and Hotel which offers a soda fountain and grill reminiscent of “the old days”. We had cheeseburgers that were great.
The Fort Davis National Historic site is located within the town of Fort Davis. In fact the town grew up around the fort during the years that the fort was active between 1854 and 1891. The fort was established in a box canyon near Limpia Creek and is one of the best remaining examples of a frontier military post. The fort was named after Jefferson Davis, who was then the Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Black soldiers, known as Buffalo Soldiers, served at Fort Davis from 1867 to 1885. Fort Davis’s primary role was safeguarding the west Texas frontier against the Comanche and Apache Indians particularly along the road from San Antonio to El Paso.
…