Mason County

In February 1861 Mason County voted 75 to 2 against secession. Most of its people were German immigrants who generally opposed slavery and did not want to leave a country they had only recently joined, and the 1860 census counted just eighteen enslaved people among 630 residents. The vote strained relations between German and American settlers. Fort Mason, surrendered to the Confederacy that March, stood nearly empty through the war, and raids grew severe. With many men away, herds ran wild for rustlers, and beef fell so low that cattle were killed for their hides.

What the plaque says

Mason County Created January 22, 1858, and organized August 2, 1858, this county was named for its most important settlement, Fort Mason. Garrisoned intermittently from July 6, 1851, to March 23, 1869, Fort Mason was named for Lt. G. T. Mason of the United States 2nd Dragoons, killed in Mexican War action on April 25, 1846, near Brownsville. Fort Mason was one of a chain of posts situated a day's horseback ride apart, from Red River to the Rio Grande, for protecting frontier against Apaches, Comanches, other Indians. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — 1.1 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 — 14 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 — 28 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

• Fort Mason, Site of — 1.0 mi
• R. Grosse and Sons — 1.1 mi
• Mason National Bank — 1.1 mi
• Fort Mason and Camp Llano, C.S.A. — 1.1 mi