Site of Camp Cooper

This is private ranch land with no public access. In October and November 1859 George H. Thomas, then commanding the Second Cavalry, led the Cimarron expedition out of Camp Cooper toward the headwaters of the Canadian and Red rivers and into New Mexico Territory. It never brought the raiding Comanches to bay. That August Thomas had escorted the Comanche and Brazos reservation people out of Texas to Indian Territory; the next summer, on the Salt Fork of the Brazos, an elderly Comanche warrior wounded him with two arrows.

What the plaque says

Site of Camp Cooper Established by Major W. J. Hardee, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, on January 3, 1856 for the purpose of defending the frontier against the Comanche Indians. Named in honor of Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General, U.S. Army. Home of General Robert E. Lee for nineteen months, 1856-1857. From this post the Cimarron Expedition set out, October 1, 1859. Abandoned February 21, 1861. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 9.1 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Old Jail Art Center — 22 mi
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.

More markers nearby

• Western Cattle Trail Crossings at Fort Griffin, The — 8.4 mi
• Frontier Town of Fort Griffin — 8.4 mi
• Bush Knob Massacre — 8.8 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Griffin — 8.9 mi