Fort Craig

When the Army gave up the post in 1885, its buildings were sold to Captain Jack Crawford, the Poet Scout the panel names. After the Civil War, Black troops of the regiments called Buffalo Soldiers had garrisoned it. In 2004 investigators learned that a collector had been looting the post cemetery; a retired historian remembered a uniformed Buffalo Soldier's body in his house, and by the time they looked only a skull was left. Federal archaeologists exhumed sixty-seven more burials to protect them, for reburial at Santa Fe National Cemetery. The ruins are now Bureau of Land Management land.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Fort Craig Fort Craig, which replaced Fort Conrad located about nine miles north, was established to control Indian raids along the Jornada del Muerto. Troops from Fort Craig were defeated by Confederate forces at the Battle of Valverde, 7 miles distant, in 1862. Capt. Jack Crawford, the "Poet- Scout." was stationed here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  A Rio Grande refuge south of Socorro where cranes and geese winter by the tens of thousands on wetlands and fields kept by people, because the river no longer floods to make them.

More markers nearby

• Paraje De Fra Cristobal — 7.2 mi
• Women of the Camino Real — 7.2 mi
• Fort Craig — 7.2 mi
• Vásquez de Coronado's Route — 7.2 mi