Fort Gates

The Handbook of Texas lists what stood at Fort Gates: eighteen buildings, among them four officers' quarters, a hospital, a bakehouse and a blacksmith shop. In April 1851 the post held 256 enlisted men and forty-five officers, the most in any month. Lt. George Pickett, later a Confederate general, served here in 1850 and 1851. Engineer Lt. W. H. C. Whiting reported that the post protected only its immediate neighborhood. After the garrison left in 1852, the buildings fell apart until only fireplace rock remained, and Lead Mountain was named for bullets found behind the ruins.

What the plaque says

Fort Gates In the mid-1800s, Native tribes often met westward Anglo expansion in Texas with hostilities along the frontier line. To shield settlers form potential attack, the U.S. Army established a static line of outposts form the Rio Grande northward to the Red River. Few early settlements existed in this vast, unprotected area created from the Milam Land District (formerly Robertson's Colony). After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Fort Gates, the last of a cordon of stockaded fortifications across Texas at the time, was established to defend area settlers. The U.S. Army erected the post, named for Mexican-American War veteran Maj. Collinson Reed Gates of the 4th U.S. Infantry, about five miles southeast of present day Gatesville on Oct. 26, 1849. Four companies of the 8th U.S. Infantry Regiment manned Fort Gates' 17 buildings. Very soon after the garrison was established, many of the families in upper Milam County moved here. As a result, the post served as the nucleus for the settlement of the surrounding area. The post ably performed in lessening the threat of attacks from Native tribes. With its primary objective accomplished, the U.S. Army transferred the garrison to Fort Phantom Hill (Jones County) in March 1852 and officially closed Fort Gates in February 1853. In 1853, O.T. Tyler, an early Fort Gates settler, began to organize a county government. Settlers convened and signed a petition to the Texas House of Representatives, and on February 4, 1854, Gov. Elisha M. Pease signed legislation creating Coryell County. Fort Gates served as the county seat until May 27, 1854, when the county clerk transferred archives to Gatesville, the new seat of government. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 15 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 30 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Hamilton County Courthouse — 33 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Gatesville — 3.6 mi
• Gatesville — 3.7 mi
• Coryell County Courthouse — 3.7 mi
• White Mound Baptist Church — 5.2 mi