Fort Clark #1 Traditional Cache
Vertighost: Cache owner (CO) has not responded and, as there's been no cache to find for for an extended period of time, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. In general, caches that have been archived due to maintenance issues or lack of cache owner communication are not eligible to be unarchived.
Vertighost
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Small pill bottle with camo.Bring your own pen.You'll have to walk a little for this one and beware of mugglers pic-nickning.
FORT CLARK. Fort Clark was established on June 20, 1852, at Las Moras Springs in Kinney County by companies C and E of the First Infantry under the command of Maj. Joseph H. LaMotte. The name Las Moras ("the mulberries") was given by Spanish explorers to the springs and the creek they feed. The site was long favored by Coahuiltecan Indians and later by the Comanches, Apaches, and other tribes. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the big spring was a stopping place on the eastern branch of the great Comanche Trail into Mexico. In 1849 Lt. W. H. C. Whiting, during his reconnaissance for a practicable wagon route between San Antonio and El Paso, recognized its military potential and recommended the location as a site for a fort. The post was originally named Fort Riley in honor of the commanding officer of the First Infantry, but on July 15, 1852, at Riley's request, it was renamed in honor of Maj. John B. Clark, a deceased officer who had served in the Mexican War. A formal military lease for Fort Clark was made on July 30, 1852, when Lt. Col. D. C. Tompkins signed an agreement with Samuel A. Maverick, who owned the land, for a period not to exceed twenty years. The fort was strategically located as anchor to the cordon of army posts that had been established along the southwest Texas border after the Mexican War. The fort's purpose was to guard the Mexican border, to protect the military road to El Paso, and to defend against Indian depredations arising from either side of the Rio Grande. By November 1852 Fort Clark had two companies of the First Infantry under the command of Capt. W. E. Prince, and for the next three years officers of the First Infantry and Mounted Rifles served as post commanders.
Especially significant during the Indian campaigns in the last half of the nineteenth century were the Black Seminole scouts, who served at Fort Clark from 1872 until 1914. The Black Seminoles had spent twenty years protecting the northern Mexican frontier state of Coahuila before being recruited by the United States Army to serve as scouts. Under Lt. John L. Bullis, who commanded them from 1873 to 1881, the scouts played a decisive role in the Indian campaigns. Among the roster of scouts are four who were awarded the Medal of Honor. During the Civil War the southwest Texas frontier was left relatively unprotected, and Indian depredations, particularly by Indians using Mexico as a sanctuary, were widespread and devastating. After the war attempts by federal troops to curtail Indian raiders coming from Mexico met with little success until early 1873, when Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie and the Fourth United States Cavalry were ordered to Fort Clark. On May 18 Mackenzie led six companies of the Fourth Cavalry, along with a contingent of Black Seminole scouts, across the border into Mexico on a punitive expedition against Kickapoo and Lipan Apache Indians at Remolino. It was a daring raid that resulted in the destruction of three villages, the killing of nineteen warriors, and the capture of forty prisoners, including the aged Lipan chief Costillitto. Despite Mexico's protests that the United States was violating its sovereignty, other sorties by Mackenzie soon followed. As a result, Indian forays from Mexico into Texas declined dramatically. Mackenzie was succeeded by Lt. Col. William Rufus Shafter in 1876. Shafter followed Mackenzie as one of the most successful of Fort Clark's Indian-fighting commanding officers. Under Shafter, Fort Clark became the garrison for the Tenth United States Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth United States Infantryqqv regiments.
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