Exiting the car, my husband Michael and I appear to be the only people intruding on the solitary ruins of Fort Phantom Hill. I begin walking toward the soaring chimney stacks in the field beyond. My husband walks the other way and crosses the road. Turning, I follow, wondering what he sees that I don't.
A dollhouse-sized stone structure, a magazine where ammunition was stored, stands before me. There is a window in front and several high slits on each side — “A safety precaution,” Michael says.
Thinking that the door is most likely on the opposite end, I begin walking around the building. Then I glance at my sandal-shod feet. I look at the ground. It is full of dried mesquite beans, dried grasses, dirt, and small craters that I believe are home to a zillion tiny ants. My hubby shakes his head. “They’re doodlebug traps — they eat ants. Didn’t you ever play with doodlebugs when you were a kid?” Well, NO!
Returning to the other side of the road and the open-air Visitor Center, we begin reading the large storyboard. I hear a chuckle beside me.“What’s funny,” I ask.
“Someone said in 1892 the town that sprang up around the post’s remains contained nothing but one hotel, a saloon, a general store, a blacksmith shop, and 10,000 prairie dogs.”
I continue reading and get lost in myriad words and stories. Then I realize Michael has disappeared. Leaving the security of concrete, I step onto the dirt path and look down. The trail is littered with more giant red ants than I can count. Stepping carefully, I look up and see a sign that tells me to BEWARE OF RATTLESNAKES.
Watching for both snakes and red ants, I scan further afield and see Michael sitting on a low rock wall amidst a grove of chimneys and prickly pear cactus. There are no children’s squeals of laughter, no loud conversations. It is only the two of us standing among the towering ruins with the whispers of old ghosts blowing through the twisted, knurled mesquite trees. He takes my hand, and we walk toward the broken remains of yesteryear.
In November of 1851, five companies of the US Infantry were sent to Texas with orders to establish a post. Several days into their journey, a Texas Blue Norther struck, and within mere minutes, temperatures dropped below freezing. One of the quartermaster’s wagons got separated from the column of soldiers, resulting in a teamster and twenty-seven mules and oxen freezing to death,
When the soldiers finally arrived at the point of land where they were tasked with building a fort to give safe passage to those heading west, one young lieutenant was so impressed with his surroundings that he wrote to his wife, “We have arrived at a point known as Phantom Hill. Too much cannot be said for its beauty. The country around is alive with deer, turkey, and bear.”
Barely a week later, he changed his tune, “When I say to you that we have a beautiful valley to look upon, I have said everything favorable that could be said of this place... Like the Dove after the Deluge, not one green sprig can we find to indicate this was ever intended by man to inhabit… .”
The soldiers had a fort to build, but there were no trees. They had to use oxen to haul timber from 40 miles away for officers’ quarters and a hospital. A nearby quarry provided stone for the magazine, guardhouse, commissary, and chimneys. The rest of the fort was built using vertical poles woven with brush and chinked with mud for walls. They were drafty, critter-infested structures that were a source of complaint among Army wives.
Two years and three commanders later, the fort was abandoned. Shortly afterward, the wooden buildings burned to the ground. The last fort commander, who was there for two short weeks, was suspected of arson, court-martialed, acquitted, and court-martialed again.
(Charlotte Caldwell loves Texas. She has explored every corner of the state and has been on more back roads and in more small Texas towns than anyone could imagine. A lover of music, live theater, cooking, entertaining, history, traveling and writing - she has written a cookbook about the art of picnicking – as well as eight additional books about her adventures. [email protected]; www.charlottestexashillcountry.com)
