Fort Martin Scott

Fort Martin Scott was one of the first army posts on the western frontier of Texas, set on Barons Creek two miles from Fredericksburg in December 1848. It guarded the Fredericksburg-San Antonio road, but its real work was keeping peace in a place where peace already held. The German settlers had made their treaty with the Comanches in 1847, and an active trade had grown up between them; the soldiers were there to keep friction from that trade from turning into war.

The post also kept Fredericksburg in business. Its garrison was the one steady source of hard cash for the town's merchants and laborers. In 1850, when settlers and travelers crowding the range brought several nations to the edge of war near the San Saba, Indian agent John Rollins went out under escort of Capt. Hamilton W. Merrill and troopers of the Second Dragoons from the fort, and the talks ended in the Fort Martin Scott Treaty, which held off open fighting.

As settlement moved west the post lost its purpose, served as a forage depot in 1852 and 1853, and closed. The first Gillespie County Fair was held at the fort in 1881. Today the Texas Historical Commission site has original buildings, the guardhouse and jail among them, with replica structures and a walking trail.