Downtown San Angelo Summer '25 - Magazine - Page 15
The rough stuff wasn’t all due to
Indian skirmishes, though; sometimes it
was friendly fire, such as this incident
reported by The Baltimore Sun, August
6, 1869: “Capt. D. M. Mason . . . was
shot and killed recently between Fort
Concho and San Antonio, Texas, as he
was getting on the stage. The escort
took him for a robber and shot him.
Capt. M. was a Virginian, and one of
Mosby’s most gallant officers in the late
war.” In June 1873, the Austin
American-Statesman reported a “brush
affair” at Fort Concho: “A stage-driver,
and another employee . . . had some
words about the cleanliness of the
latter, in upsetting a plate of soup at
the dinner table, whereupon the driver
drew his six-shooter and shot the other
several times, killing him on the spot.”
The driver “delivered himself up to
military authorities to escape being
lynched,” and the following morning,
he was set free but ordered off the
post. “His dead body was found in the
brush, about a mile from the post. This
is what they call up at Concho a
‘brush affair.’”
So, things were rowdy in and around
the forts, but not everything was bleak.
A correspondent to v wrote in
November, 1868 of traveling from
Fredericksburg to Fort McKavett with
plans to continue on to Fort Concho.
He describes Fort Mason on a “tall hill
near the river Llano . . . quite a cluster
of white stone buildings which were
visible to us for several miles . . . like
a marble city in the midst of a
wilderness.” Further, the writer says,
“We dined rather sumptuously at Fort
Mason at a table presided over by Mrs.
Hulz, wife of Dr. Hulz, post surgeon,
formerly of New Orleans. Between the
excellent bill of fare and the intelligent
conversation of our refined and
educated hostess we were rarely
entertained.” It seems women could be
a much-appreciated asset on the
frontier.
In addition, the restorative properties
of west Texas were touted, as Dr. Hulz
had arrived at Fort Mason with
consumption (tuberculosis), “but the air
has restored him to health . . . If the
country were less difficult of access it
could not fail to be the resort of
thousands of valetudinarians.
In the genial temperature of its winters
it possesses a great advantage over
Minnesota.” (No self-respecting Texan
would argue with that!) At Fort
Hand drawn map of Tom Green County.
McKavett, the travelers enjoyed
Photo Courtesy of Amazonaws.com
billiards, saw a prairie dog village, and
an obliging pecan tree provided dessert. If it’s true that, as Juvenal bemoaned in
the first century A.D., “Two things only
Fort Concho, like Fort Mason, was also the people anxiously desire–bread and
constructed with artistry as well as
circuses,” then our city in its beginning
durability. Materials used to build the
offered only “circus,” intent on
fort had to be hauled in by oxcart
relieving as many soldiers of their
from the Gulf Coast, and stonemasons
“bread” as possible. With saloons and
and carpenters hired from around
gambling parlors, prostitutes and horse
Fredericksburg. As of 1876, the fort was thieves, it was so discredited that it
surrounded by “a flat, treeless, dreary
was referred to as only “Over the
prairie;” still, the parade grounds were River,” and one can almost see the
bordered by “elegant, imposing”
accompanying eyeroll. Drs. Notson and
officers’ quarters and “handsome”
Smith wrote letters from the fort of
barracks. The oldest extant buildings in more than 100 murders in the town
San Angelo are the commissary and
over a two-year period around 1869,
quartermaster buildings at Fort Concho, with Dr. Smith saying, “it is never
and commanders of the fort are
considered safe to pass through there
memorialized by city streets named
at night.”
after them–Shafter, Mackenzie,
Grierson. Henry Ossian Flipper, the
In 1868, Bart DeWitt bought 320 acres
first African American graduate of West “over the river” and christened it Santa
Point, former slave, and 2nd lieutenant Angela in honor of his late wife,
over the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th
Carolina Angela de la Garza. De la
cavalry at Fort Concho, also has a
Garza was from a prominent San
street in his name.
Antonio family and DeWitt, with his
connections there and in Galveston,
hoped to lure investment to the little
settlement, then with a population of
about 250 souls. DeWitt laid out streets,
establishing the east/west blocks of
Ben Ficklin street sign.
Concho Avenue in downtown San
It’s impossible to tell the story of that
Angelo. However, DeWitt defaulted on
village to the north of Fort Concho
a loan from Marcus Koenigheim, and it
without some account of the fort and
would be the efforts of other
the town of Ben Ficklin, for both were enterprising men that propelled the
important in its genesis and eventual
rough and tumble village into a
growth into the city of San Angelo.
bustling frontier town. But DeWitt’s
Closer to the fort than Ben Ficklin and name for the town stuck, sort
more populated, the northern town was of–variously called Santa Angela, St. or
. . . problematic–and that’s said having Saint Angela or San Angela, the
relayed just a few anecdotes about
designation of “San Angelo” came
Indian skirmishes and antics at the
courtesy of the United States Post
fort.
Office in 1883.
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