Site of Fort Croghan

The fort began at McCulloch's ranger station on Hamilton Creek, three miles south of present Burnet, and was moved that October three miles upstream to the other side of the creek. It was called Camp Croghan, then Camp Hamilton, before Fort Croghan, for Col. George Croghan. Its buildings were oak with shingle roofs; the officers lived in four log houses of two rooms each, and the hospital was a large four-room log house. The post became headquarters of the Second Dragoons in 1852. The old hospital stood until 1922.

What the plaque says

Site of Fort Croghan Established by Lieut. C. H. Tyler, United States Second Dragoons, by order of the War Department, March 18, 1849, as a protection to frontier settlers against hostile Indians. Abandoned in December, 1853 as the settlements had extended farther west.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Inks Lake State Park — 7.9 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 8.4 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 9.0 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 14 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.

More markers nearby

• Peter Kerr — steps away
• The Burnet Bulletin — 0.6 mi
• Red Brick School — 0.6 mi
• General Adam R. Johnson — 0.7 mi