Fort Brown

The post's best-known medical officer arrived in 1882 to fight the last and worst yellow fever epidemic at Fort Brown. William Crawford Gorgas, an Alabama-born Army surgeon, served here until 1884. One patient was Marie Cook Doughty, and he caught the disease while nursing her. Both recovered, and they married in 1885. Having survived it, each was immune. The link between mosquitoes and yellow fever was proved later, by Walter Reed's commission building on Carlos Finlay's work, and Gorgas won fame by applying it in Havana and Panama. The old post hospital later housed Texas Southmost College classes.

What the plaque says

Fort Brown Oldest permanent fort in Texas; Called Fort Taylor in March, 1846; Later renamed in honor of Major Jacob Brown killed here in May, 1846; Permanent post established, 1849; Evacuated by Federal troops in 1861, by Confederates, 1863; Reoccupied by United States troops from 1865 to 1906; Again reoccupied by United States troops in 1913

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stillman House Museum — steps away
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 7.3 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 22 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 25 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.

More markers nearby

• Bagdad-Matamoros, C.S.A. — steps away
• Fort Brown Reservation — steps away
• Home of Charles Stillman, 1810-1875 — steps away
• Cameron County — 0.3 mi