Fort Mason, Site of

Fort Mason belonged to a line of posts from the Rio Grande to the Red River that the War Department authorized in 1848 to open new country. Its name may honor Lt. George T. Mason, as the stone says, or Gen. Richard Barnes Mason, who had died only a year before. The Second Dragoons under Bvt. Maj. Hamilton W. Merrill built the post. Settlers at first stayed close to it, then spread out as the Kiowa, Lipan Apache and Comanche peoples were pushed farther away. The fort was closed in January 1854 and reopened briefly that spring.

What the plaque says

Fort Mason, Site of Established July 6, 1851 by the U. S. Army as a protection to the frontier. Named in honor of Lieut. George T. Mason, killed in action near Brownsville, April 25, 1846. Albert Sidney Johnston, George H. Thomas, Earl Van Dorn and Robert E. Lee, of the 2nd U. S. Cavalry, were stationed here at intervals from 1856 to 1861. Evacuated by Federal troops, March 29, 1861 and reoccupied after the Civil War until 1869. (1936)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — 0.6 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 13 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 29 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.

More markers nearby

• Mason National Bank — 0.5 mi
• Fort Mason and Camp Llano, C.S.A. — 0.6 mi
• R. Grosse and Sons — 0.6 mi
• The Commercial Bank — 0.6 mi