Fort Davis occupied one of the most strategically critical positions in the American West. From 1854 to 1891, soldiers stationed here protected emigrants, mail coaches, and freight wagons crossing the trans-Pecos wilderness -- a vast stretch of arid terrain between Fort Clark to the east and Fort Bliss at El Paso to the west. The San Antonio-El Paso Road, sometimes called the Military Road, was the primary route for settlers heading to California after the 1849 gold rush. But this road cut directly through territory controlled by the Comanche, Kiowa, and Mescalero Apache peoples, who fiercely resisted American expansion. The fort's garrison patrolled these routes and maintained a presence designed to deter raids, though mounted indigenous warriors often outmaneuvered the infantry troops stationed here.

On July 9, 1857, one of the strangest processions in American military history arrived at Fort Davis: a caravan of 40 men, 25 camels, and over a hundred sheep led by Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a former Navy lieutenant. The camels were part of an experimental US Army unit formed in 1855 to test whether these desert-adapted animals could serve as pack animals on the American frontier. The experiment was actually working -- camels could carry heavier loads and go longer without water than mules or horses. But the Civil War ended the program, and the camels were eventually sold off or simply released into the Texas wilderness, where occasional sightings of feral camels persisted for decades.

When Texas seceded from the Union in March 1861, Fort Davis's garrison departed on orders from General David E. Twiggs, who surrendered all federal installations in Texas to Confederate authorities. Confederate troops briefly occupied the fort, and in November 1861, General Henry Hopkins Sibley passed through on his ill-fated campaign to capture New Mexico for the Confederacy. After his defeat at the Battle of Glorieta Pass in March 1862, Sibley's forces retreated along the Military Road, abandoning Fort Davis in April 1862. The fort was destroyed by fire, either by retreating Confederates or by indigenous warriors who reclaimed the territory during the war years.

After the Civil War, Fort Davis became home to the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, the famous Buffalo Soldiers -- African American troops who served on the frontier under white officers. Among them was Henry Flipper, the first African American graduate of West Point, who served at Fort Davis as a second lieutenant in 1880-1881. The Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Victorio War against Chiricahua Apache forces and participated in the final campaigns that ended organized indigenous resistance in West Texas. Despite their distinguished service, these troops faced discrimination even from fellow soldiers, receiving inferior horses and equipment while performing the same dangerous duties as white cavalry units.

Fort Davis was decommissioned in 1891, but its remote location and the durability of its stone and adobe construction helped preserve it through the decades. When the National Park Service established the site in 1961, more than twenty original buildings remained standing -- an extraordinary survival rate for a frontier military post. Today, five historic buildings have been refurbished to their 1880s appearance, allowing visitors to walk through officers' quarters, barracks, and the hospital where both soldiers and civilians received care. The parade ground, where troops once assembled for drills and inspections, still anchors the site, surrounded by the canyon walls that General Smith chose 170 years ago for their natural protection.