A personal account of Fort Conch in 1870

Lightly edited by Jim Fish

Ozona—The following is a personal account of U.S. Army assistant surgeon W. M. Natson, written while he was at Fort Conch.

"Ft. Concho is the center of a line of posts extending from El Paso on the Rio Grande to the northeastern border of Texas on the Red River. Beginning from the west, the garrisoned positions are Fort Bliss, Quitman, Davis, Stockton, Concho, Griffin, and Richardson. It also geographically, but without as direct a road connection as with the one just named, forms one of the southern chains to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

"Fort Concho is situated at the junction of the North Concho and Main Concho Rivers, immediately west of their point of confluence, the North Concho flowing nearly a southeasterly direction, and the Main Concho very nearly east, continuing that course until its junction with the Colorado River. Brief as has been its existence, the foundation of the first building having been laid in January 1868, and between that date and its abandonment in 1888, it almost lost its identity on account of its multiplicity of names. Originally called Camp Hatch by the first garrison of five companies of the Fourth Cavalry, it was changed by request of the distinguished officer by that name of that regiment to Camp Kelly in honor of another officer of the same regiment. The Quartermaster's Department called it Fort Griffin until an order came from District Headquarters to fix its final appellation of Fort Concho.

"On March 1, 1870, the buildings of the post were, in order of their construction, a commissary and quartermaster storehouse, hospital, five officers' quarters, a magazine, and two barracks, all built of light-colored sandstone.

"The commissary and quartermaster's storehouses were built upon the same plan and are of the same dimensions, about 100 feet in length, 30 feet in width, and about the same to the peak of the roof, each' building forming one large room with a little closet about 10 feet square walled off for office purposes. The flooring is of large irregular slabs of stone, cemented with ordinary mortar. The woodwork rafters, beams, etc., as in all other buildings, is of pecan, a peculiarly intractable variety of our northern hickory, which by its twisting, curling, and shrinking hardly promises permanence of the symmetry of the buildings in which it is used.

"The hospital, built upon the plans issued by the Surgeon General of the Army, is by far the handsomest and best finished building in the post. It is plastered throughout, and all the partition walls are made of stone. There are two wards with a capacity of twenty-four beds. During the summer of 1869, the Fifteenth and Thirty-fifth regiments of Infantry consolidated near this post, and although their combined numbers would not have exceeded the probable full garrison contemplated for Fort Concho, it was found necessary by the post surgeon to pitch several hospital tents. 

“A belvedere has been placed on the main building, affording a distant, if not diverse, view of the prairie in every direction. Fire buckets and axes are kept in the several halls of the building, with printed directions for their use in emergencies. The surgery is tastefully and conveniently fitted. Cases requiring isolation and not contagious are taken care of in the upper rooms, but from the narrow and winding stairway communicating with the upper floor, the rooms are scarcely available for that purpose, and the middle upper room is not at all so for the uses laid down in the plan. The wards are heated by stoves, and all other rooms by open fires. Ventilation and light, thanks to shrinking windows and doors, are abundantly supplied. Soft water was supplied later by cisterns.

"The officers' quarters, last in the program of construction, have not been completed at this date, (1870). There are five cottage buildings of stone; four erected for captains' quarters and one for major or lieutenant-colonel. The quarters are built with two rooms facing the parade, separated by a broad hall: in the rear of the west room a kitchen. The rooms are commodious, about 15 feet square, well lit. The larger quarters are built on the same plan, with one additional room in the L, and are about four feet higher. All the buildings have attics and are heated by open fires. Each kitchen is provided with a pantry.

"The men's quarters last in the construction program are incomplete. The one facing the left of the parade is composed of three stone buildings; the two upon the front, intended to be used as company rooms and dormitories, are each about 120 feet long and 25 in width; the third building stands at right angles in the rear of the center of these, and was proposed for a mess-room, kitchen, and storeroom. These buildings are all joined under one roof and are called a set of quarters for one company, although at present, they are occupied by two.

"A wide portico surrounds the two main buildings but has not yet been floored. An experiment was made to floor the set of quarters with concrete, but it proved a failure. The other set of quarters was started on the same plan, and except that the woodwork, i.e., fitting in of doors and window sashes, is not so advanced, and it has no rear building, is similar to the one described. No permanent outbuildings of any kind are attached to the men's quarters. 

"The Company's stables are merely frames covered with canvas. A new guardhouse has just been constructed of heavy pecan planks; it promises to be suitable for the purpose designed. It contains two rooms, one for the guard and one for the confinement of general prisoners, and three secure cells for the security of the more refractory. A stone coral two hundred feet wide by 250 deep is being enclosed with the intention of accommodating both the stables of the quartermaster and those of the companies."