Fort Stanton Historic Site

Visit other historic forts in the U.S.  Please photo this with the historic fort in the background or, if in the fort, a feature you think is cool.

U.S. mission only:

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OUT OF THE U.S.

Fort Stanton (built 1855) was a U.S. military fort built in New Mexico in the United States.  It was established to protect settlements along the Rio Bonito in the Apache Wars. Kit Carson, John "Black Jack" Pershing, Billy the Kid, and Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry all lived here.  Texas Confederate forces occupied the post for six weeks in 1861, after the post was abandoned with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the region to Fort Craig.

The fort was originally established in part as the Mescalero Apache reservation. In 1873 the reservation was moved 30 miles southwest to its current location. In 1899, President William McKinley transferred Fort Stanton property from the War Department to the Marine Hospital Service, converting the military reservation to America's first federal tuberculosis sanatorium.

During World War II, Fort Stanton was used as a detention center for German and Japanese Americans arrested as "enemy aliens," and 411 German nationals taken from the luxury liner Columbus in 1939 (officially recorded as "distressed seamen paroled from the German Embassy" since the U.S. was still technically neutral at the time of their capture).

2007, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson designated Fort Stanton as a state historic site/living history venue, and funds to renovate headquarters, officers quarters, and stables.

2009, the area around Fort Stanton was designated by the U.S. Congress as a National Conservation Area (NCA), with more than 25,000 acres in order to protect a unique cave resource, Fort Stanton Cave National Natural Landmark.  The NCA, called Fort Stanton – Snowy River Cave, is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Roswell Field Office, with 70 miles of multi-use trails for horseback riding, mountain bike riding and hiking. The NCA is joined on its south and northeast boundaries by the Smokey Bear Ranger District of the Lincoln National Forest.