Site of Fort Smith

Fort Smith was a camp, not a stockade. The Handbook of Texas says Texas Rangers set it up on high ground near White Rock on September 15, 1845, to watch Comanche movements and intercept raiding parties, a year earlier than the plaque's about 1846. The entry also notes that raids were logged in the counties around Hill and Johnson but never inside them, and that Lieutenant Whiting thought the district was probably a council ground where all people traveled safely. The marker stands on private land, so there is no public route to it.

What the plaque says

Site of Fort Smith One of the chain of fortifications extending from the Colorado to Red River. Established in about 1846 as a protection against Indians. Named for Major Thomas I. Smith. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 12 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 19 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Site of Switzer College — 5.8 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Itasca — 6.0 mi
• Milford Presbyterian Church — 6.5 mi
• First Baptist Church of Milford — 6.5 mi