Site of Fort Inge

The post Lee saw was laid out around a rectangular parade ground, with an enclosed stable at its south end. Most of its dozen buildings were jacales, upright log pickets plastered with mud and whitewashed; the most substantial, of cut limestone, served as the hospital and later as a storehouse. A low wall of dry-stacked stone went up around the fort during or after the Civil War. One staff inspector called Fort Inge pre-eminent as a military site for its wood, water and soil, and wrote that it was in a state of constant warfare and constant service.

What the plaque says

Site of Fort Inge Established by Captain Sidney Burbank, First U. S. Infantry, March 13, 1849, on east bank of Leona River in Uvalde County. Named for Lieutenant Zebulon M. P. Inge, killed in Battle of Resaca de La Palma, May 9, 1846, in the Mexican War. Protected the southern Overland Mail route from Indian raids. Visited by Robert E. Lee, 1856. At that time fort consisted of a dozen primitive but neatly kept buildings. Occupied by Confederate soldiers in Civil War. Reoccupied 1866 by Federal troops until abandoned March 28, 1869. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Inge Historical Site — steps away
  A county park on the Leona River below a 140-foot volcanic plug, where an army post guarded the new road to El Paso from 1849 to 1869 and Texas Rangers camped after.
• Uvalde Grand Opera House — 2.5 mi
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 2.8 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.

More markers nearby

• Site of Fort Inge — steps away
• Reading Wood Black — 2.5 mi
• Fort Inge, Camp Dix, C.S.A. — 2.5 mi
• Early Texas Wagon Yards — 2.5 mi