Fort Clark Springs

As we walked back to camp last night after a late dinner in town, we crossed Las Moras creek for the third time. "Old Indian Legend" has it that when you cross the Las Moras your sins are washed away. Now I don't feel so bad about ordering the chicken fried steak. In case you wanna know a little more about where we spent the night, here's the skinny on Brackettville, TX, straight from Wikipedia herself. She knows it all. And before I forget again, thanks to our Saturday sponsor Melissa Fischer, a great athlete and sweet gal who I'll tell you more about in the near future. Now enjoy your history lesson...

Founded in 1852 as Las Moras (the name of a nearby spring and the creek it feeds), the town initially was a supply stop on the old San Antonio-El Paso road and a supply depot for the U.S. Army's Fort Clark (the fort was established the same year). Later the town was named Brackett for the owner of the first dry goods store in the area, and in 1873 when a post office was awarded "ville" was appended to the name to differentiate from another town.
The town grew quickly through the 19th century as Fort Clark grew, but the town's existence remained very strongly tied to Fort Clark's fortunes. Fort Clark was for many years home to the famous Buffalo Soldiers--and, demographically, Brackettville had a larger proportion of Black Seminoles (people of mixed African American and Seminole ancestry) than the rest of West Texas. Their language, Afro-Seminole Creole, is still spoken by some in Brackettville.

After the Buffalo Soldiers moved out of Fort Clark, the fort remained a cavalry post, and virtually every cavalry unit in the U.S. Army was stationed at or trained at Fort Clark at one time or another. In 1943, the U.S. Army activated the Second Cavalry, which was to be the Army's last horse-mounted unit. By 1944, even the Second had been mechanized, and Fort Clark, so long a center of mounted cavalry, was targeted for closure. Before its closure, the fort was used as a German prisoner-of-war camp.

After the fort officially closed in 1946, it had a variety of uses, until in 1971 it was converted into a resort/retirement center. The historic district of the fort is now on the National Register of Historic Places. However, the resort is not the economic engine the fort once was, and Brackettville has shrunk from its peak population during the war years.

North of town is a tourist attraction called Alamo Village, built in the 1950s as the set of John Wayne's movie The Alamo. Scenes from the 1969 comedy Viva Max! were shot here.
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