Fort Phantom Hill

The Army built the post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos in November 1851, one of a second line of forts that followed Capt. Randolph B. Marcy's 1849 route across the Comanchería. It was an infantry post in horse country, and it never fought. The people who came to it came to talk and trade: a Penateka Comanche band under Buffalo Hump called now and then, and so did Lipan, Wichita, Kiowa and Kickapoo groups. A girl who grew up at the fort remembered Delaware men holding a ceremony before a hunt, and the Delaware scouts Jim Shaw and Black Beaver served the garrison as guides and interpreters.

The troops marched out in April 1854, and soon after a fire took the log walls and thatch roofs. What would not burn stayed: more than a dozen tall stone chimneys, the powder magazine, the guardhouse and most of the commissary. A Butterfield stage stop used the ruins from 1858, and after 1875 a town grew up around them, buying and shipping buffalo hides. The 1880 census counted more than 545 people living at the fort, with a hotel, and it served briefly as the Jones County seat before the county chose Anson. By the 1890s it was nearly empty.

Abilene's John Guitar bought the land in 1928, and his grandson, Jim Alexander, deeded the 38 acres to the Fort Phantom Foundation in 1997. Trails lead among the chimneys, and a pavilion has panels and restrooms.