Fort Bliss, C.S.A.

The fort the Confederates took had already moved, and it would move again. Troops first camped on Coons' Rancho in 1849, left in 1851, and came back in 1854 to rented quarters at Magoffinsville, where the post was named that March for Lt. Col. William Wallace Smith Bliss, Zachary Taylor's chief of staff and son-in-law. A flood swept Magoffinsville away in 1867, and the garrison went to Camp Concordia, to downtown El Paso in 1878, to Hart's Mill in 1879 and to Lanoria Mesa in 1893. The adobe replica of the first post here was built in 1948.

What the plaque says

Fort Bliss, C.S.A. Surrendered with property and $20,000 to Texas Confederates on March 21, 1861. From old fort, the South launched the New Mexico-Arizona campaign. Later, Confederates abandoned and destroyed most of fort and equipment, except for hospital and medical supplies left for their sick and wounded. Federals occupied fort, July 4, 1862, and later escorted the recovered patients by horseback and ambulance over 500 miles down the Rio Grande to Fort Clark. Federals held the trans-Pecos area longer than any other part of Texas. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chamizal National Memorial — 2.8 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 3.9 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 9.5 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 10 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Fort Bliss at Lanoria Mesa — 1.3 mi
• John Wesley Hardin — 1.8 mi
• James H. White — 1.8 mi
• Memorial Park — 1.8 mi