FORT DAVIS Administrative History

In competition with the Scobee promotion of park status for the old military post, local residents in 1936 eyed the remaining 80 acres unsold during the 1910 auction of the abandoned lands. The Fort Davis Dispatch reported on August 20: "Property in that vicinity [east of the post] is increasing in value. Homes are springing up and farms are being established." Upon review of the parcels by the Interior department, the GLO agreed to return to Fort Davis on April 10, 1937 to solicit bids for the remaining eight lots. The acreage had been considered "public domain" by locals for years, and had been forgotten by federal officials. In the mid-1930s, a Texas state surveyor, R.C. Withers, discovered in the land records the federal ownership and encouraged local residents to petition the government for its sale. H.L. Wilcox, special agent of the Interior department, came down to Fort Davis from the regional office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to conduct the sale. Writing to the GLO "Director of Investigations" in Washington, in a report stamped "Confidential Not For Public Inspection," Wilcox declared that he appraised the lots at a total of $720, and received of the bidders $785, for a profit of $65 on their sale. Among the successful parties were Miss Mary Sproul, Mac Sproul, W.O. Meeks, and C.G. Carmack of Fort Davis, and C.W. Copeland of Alpine. [68]

On his visit to Fort Davis, agent Wilcox impressed the locals with his geniality and efficient manner. What impressed Wilcox, however, was the region's untapped potential. "As yet," he wrote to his Washington superiors, "Ft. Davis has the air of a primitive western town of pioneer days." Yet he predicted "great future possibilities because of its location - junction of two Highways running north and south now partially completed, ideal year around climate, scenery, and proximity to the McDonald Observatory," which he noted would become "the third largest Observatory in the world." Not knowing the history of public and private efforts to develop the area, Wilcox believed that "it would seem that nothing but time and good advertising will make this beautiful spot one of the southwest playgrounds, and especially for the State of Texas." Then turning to the town of Fort Davis itself, Wilcox noted that "there is an abundance of lots for sale . . . and bordering on the east, south and north is an abundance of acreage of the same character [as the post lands], and as accessible to town as the lots sold." Given this condition of supply exceeding demand, the special agent concluded: "I feel that the sale of the lots for $65.00 in excess of the appraised amount was very good, and especially so in view of the fact that the only present value of the land rests in its value for pasture or dry farming." [69]

In light of these transactions, and because of the unsolicited comments of people like H.L. Wilcox, Barry Scobee persisted throughout 1937 in soliciting someone's interest in Fort Davis. The Texas Editorial Association held its winter 1936 meeting in Alpine, where Marvin Hunter, publisher of the Fort Davis Dispatch, joined Scobee in appealing for their support of a park at the abandoned post. The Alpine Avalanche, which carried Barry Scobee's articles, joined in the chorus for its neighbor, and reported in December 1936 that nearly one dozen Texas papers had written in favor of a Fort Davis park since the editors' gathering. Scobee, for his part, wrote and published that year a 40-page booklet entitled, The Story of Fort Davis and Jeff Davis County, printed and distributed by the Fort Davis Dispatch. Its owner then conceived of a plan in September 1937 to include the fort in the million-dollar fundraising campaign for Big Bend. "Why not raise another $35,000?" asked Marvin Hunter; a sum that "would buy the land occupied by the famous old frontier military post and go far toward its restoration." Hunter all but admitted that local interests had failed in their preservation efforts, and pleaded: "A comparatively small amount of money would be required now to save something that in a few more years, if not taken care of, will be only a collection of adobe bricks and a few bits of stone trimming piled about in shapeless confusion." [70]

Hunter, Scobee, and the Alpine Avalanche failed to secure NPS support on their own, but their campaign to link Fort Davis with Big Bend did intrigue one of the latter park's more prominent advocates, Everett E. Townsend. In December 1937, the Alpine resident wrote to his friend, William Hogan, historian of the NPS's Region III, to seek inclusion of Fort Davis in the next round of historic site surveys undertaken by Hogan's staff. The director, while polite, confronted what he saw as the critical issue: "I have never been sold on the historical importance of Fort Davis." He had visited the site, and considered the ruins to be "very interesting." Yet Hogan wondered: "Wherein did the history of Fort Davis differ from the history of dozens of frontier forts in the West?" He warned Townsend that "remains alone won't justify its designation as possessed of national historical significance." His friendship with the Big Bend promoter, however, led Hogan to ask for more information about the fort. Hogan then warned Townsend:

"We have been instructed to keep correspondence of this nature confidential." But the director closed with this promise: "Personally, I would be very happy if such claims for the Fort could be made." [71]

Townsend's response sounded like park service research of the 1950s and 1960s that would convince the advisory board and Congress of the merits of Fort Davis. He spoke of the isolation and distance of the post, as well as the presence of Indian bands traveling back and forth from Mexico and the Southwest. Townsend called Wild Rose Pass "the most dangerous spot on the Transcontinental Trail," and highlighted the Confederate takeover in the 1860s. Most striking for Townsend was the scale of Fort Davis's region. As a regimental post, it covered for a short time territory "as large as the combined area of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont." He conceded that "no great battles were ever fought there," but believed that the NPS should recognize that Fort Davis "was the magnet of attraction for the adventurer and the romantically inclined and it has a thrilling history." Then in an intriguing reference to the cattle business as the basis of Fort Davis's history, Townsend concluded that the region was "built . . . by four races, the American, Mexican, Indian, and the Negroes - the latter were [post-Civil] war troops." Hogan's reply indicated the esteem with which the park service held Townsend's opinions: "I think that you have made out a good case for the fort's importance, and I am grateful to you for taking the time to write out the statement." Hogan guaranteed that "the Advisory Board of the Park Service will undoubtedly consider the Fort Davis claims to national significance along with other western sites." Because there were so many frontier posts, said Hogan, there was "a tendency to dismiss any of them as 'just another fort site.'" The Region III director hoped to "pick out a very few in the Southwest and try to prove them outstanding," and he believed that Townsend's entreaty gave Fort Davis "a good possibility for inclusion in that group." [72]

It is doubtful whether Barry Scobee and the Fort Davis civic officials knew the extent of Townsend's correspondence with the park service. Yet the NPS could not act on the proposal until 1941. In the interim Scobee continued to gather evidence about the site, including documents brought from the National Archives in Washington by Dorothy Love, daughter of the Dallas state senator responsible for the Scenic Loop legislation.

Scobee wrote of Miss Love's discovery of records about the "first" fort (1854-1861), especially its physical dimensions and the daily life of its soldiers. He also took visitors on walking tours of the grounds, eventually gathering stories like that of Mrs. George W. Stuart, whose father had been Lieutenant J.M.T. Partello of the 5th U.S. Infantry, stationed at Fort Davis in 1889. Even though she had been only five years old, Mrs. Stuart recalled hiking with her father to the top of Sleeping Lion Mountain and "shooing away a panther that followed us." She had also enjoyed walking into Hospital Canyon and shouting to hear the "double echo" it produced. Her father had reportedly been "the best rifle shot in the world," and "Prince Alexis of Russia came to Fort Davis to visit him, on that account in part." Mrs. Stuart's comments to Barry Scobee upon her return after nearly 50 years were especially touching: "When I got to Fort Davis Tuesday, and into the old pitifully tumbled-down post, I recalled and recalled, with a pain in my throat for the old, old days and my gallant father." [73]

The year 1941 marked a watershed for the nation and Fort Davis. The war in Europe had drawn Americans ever closer to participation, and the conservative mood of the country continued the Depression-era focus upon history and its patriotic uses. That year also the local promoters of Fort Davis (without knowing it) had reached the half-way point in their campaign for park status. It had been 23 years since Carl Raht had popularized the Davis Mountains and energized his assistant, Barry Scobee, to preserve west Texas military history. It would also be two decades more before President John F. Kennedy would sign legislation bringing Fort Davis into the national park system. Yet the work undertaken that fateful year dramatized both the potential and the shortcomings of the 40-year crusade to make Fort Davis a national historic site. Among the features present for the first time in 1941 was a better-organized local community, led by the "Mile High Club." Formed two years earlier to replace the Fort Davis Lions Club, the fraternal group engaged in the type of lobbying and letter-writing that they had witnessed with the Alpine chamber of commerce and its push for Big Bend. Also different was the willingness of the park service to promote the fort within the federal government. Even the concepts put forward for uses of the post showed more imagination, and prominent state officials in Austin and Dallas applauded these efforts as they had not before.

Fort Davis's Mile High Club started the latest round of promotion in the fall of 1940, when by chance a summer visitor named T. Whitfield Davidson expressed interest in helping create a state park at the post. Davidson was a judge of the U.S. District Court in Dallas, and knew many important state and federal officials in Austin and throughout Texas. He and the club decided that their major shortcoming in negotiations to preserve Fort Davis had been their inability to control the land upon which the park would be located. The judge agreed to visit with the heirs to the John James estate in San Antonio, and to suggest that they grant an option for purchase to the Mile High Club. This they did, but only for a period of six months. In addition, the heirs asked a total of $25,000 for the 640 acre parcel, or about $40 per acre. Research by the club in county records revealed that the James family only paid taxes on the property at an assessed valuation of $4,000, leading Barry Scobee and A.V. Chapin, secretary-treasurer of the club, to wonder if the heirs wanted to profit inordinately from the public sector. [74]

In February 1941, the Mile High Club learned from state senator H.L. Winfield, who represented the Davis Mountains area in Austin, that he would introduce legislation to appropriate $1.5 million to match private funds needed to create Big Bend National Park. The club sought advice from Winfield, Townsend, and others at the state capital about introducing a similar bill for Fort Davis. The James purchase option was not signed until April of that year, nearly a month after the deadline for submission of new legislation. At that point the club analyzed several strategies, one of which was to approach the state highway department. Judge Davidson knew that the state gasoline tax had given the highway department "a large income," and he suggested that "if they were specifically authorized to take over this property, there would be no appropriation necessary." Absent their support, the Mile High Club inquired of Senator Winfield about a waiver of legislative rules to allow the Fort Davis bill. He warned his constituents that "it will be necessary to get the consent of the entire Senate;" a condition exacerbated by the opposition he was encountering to his Big Bend request. [75]

Had it not been for the commitment of Judge Davidson, the 1941 campaign for the fort never would have achieved momentum. Even though the locals failed to convince the state legislature to change its mind, to have the James family reduce its asking price, or to solicit private donations to purchase Fort Davis outright, the Mile High Club learned invaluable lessons that would be applied on the long journey to national park status after World War II. Davidson on more than one occasion told friends that he would have donated all the money if he could; he also spoke with donors who pointed out the absurdity of the James' demands. The judge addressed the Texas legislature on behalf of Fort Davis, and crafted an imaginative program for use of the park that broke precedent with the locals' emphasis on tourism. Davidson came to town in the summer of 1941 to speak to the Mile High Club about his wish "for the state to establish a summer school in the nature of a chautauqua on this ground." He wanted Texas public school teachers to come to Fort Davis to "receive a course of lectures in:

(a) American History.

(b) The Fundamentals of our Government and its Historical Background.

(c) In Comparative Governments and Economics."

The judge would invite to the Fort Davis teachers institute "the best talent of America . . . members of the Supreme Court and ex-members of that body." What concerned Davidson most was that "our State institutions have followed religiously the non-political and non-sectarian idea, leaving the youth open to the teachings of every 'ism."' He hoped that "if the school teachers were given an attractive [railroad] rate to come here to this wonderful climate, and [a] proper course put on, a long step would be taken in reviving the Americanism of Washington and Jefferson." He believed that "six or eight men can underwrite this proposition without taking practically any loss." In return they would be "sponsoring and founding an institution that will place Texas in another leadership of our nation in a most vital and important aspect." [76]

Once it became apparent that the Texas legislature could not consider the Fort Davis proposal for 1941, the consortium of local and statewide sponsors immediately made plans for the following year's session. W.A. Moller of Fort Davis offered $5,000 toward the purchase of the James property, while Judge Davidson approached the family to reduce the asking price by 20 percent; a figure that legislators might find more acceptable. Tom Hamilton, a lawyer from Waco, visited the Davis Mountains in the summer of 1941 with his wife and son, the latter a captain in the U.S. Army. The Hamiltons had the same experience in the town of Fort Davis as did many urban Texans:

"A beautiful little western city where you receive the hearty hand-shake and welcoming smile of those bronze-faced and warm-hearted, stalwart men and women of the Texas frontier of long ago." It was at the abandoned Army post that the Hamiltons were most moved: l saw the brick walls of the buildings still standing, but the roofs and all wood-work had rotted from the ravages of time." The sight of "bleaching bones that lay around, and the heels of shoes and horseshoes, together with rusted belt buckles," led the Waco attorney to dream that "there passed before me a panoramic parade [of] the brave men . . . guarding the lives and homes of the early settlers." Unaware that most of the soldiers at Fort Davis had been black, and that there was no record of any Indian attack near the town, Hamilton nonetheless spoke to the myth of the Army frontier that Barry Scobee hoped would solidify Fort Davis in the minds of park service surveyors. [77]

Like Judge Davidson, Tom Hamilton tried to energize public opinion on behalf of his newfound love for the history of the Davis Mountains. Upon his return home that fall, the lawyer wrote a lengthy piece in the Waco Sunday Tribune-Herald for September 14 that included a sketch of a gate at the entrance to what Hamilton called "the sacred frontier fort." He also recounted the vision he had while standing on the post grounds for "this shadow of a memorial." He had already spoken to Pat Neff, president of Hamilton's hometown school, Baylor University, who as a former chairman of the state parks board "has given the plan his full and unstinted endorsement." After approaching state senators and representatives, Hamilton promised to "present the matter to Hon. Coke Stevenson, our governor and the state park board, together with the state highway commission and likewise the railway commission." The attorney, speaking in the months prior to the U.S. entry into the Second World War, believed as did Judge Davidson that Fort Davis would "give evidence of our patriotic pride and a proper respect for the patriots who stood on the watch tower when Texas was but a wilderness, and did their part to help blaze the trail for the Texas of today." [78]

The looming reality of global conflict seemed far away from Fort Davis in that spring and summer of 1941, as the Mile High Club labored as never before to secure federal or state preservation of its military heritage. The war would remove all funding for new parks, and visitation at most NPS units would decline precipitously in the face of gasoline rationing and travel restrictions. Thus it was most ironic that in August of that year, Region III sent to west Texas Aubrey Neasham, "regional supervisor of historic sites, " to determine whether Fort Davis fell under the guidelines of the Historic Sites Act. Relying heavily on the advice of Big Bend's Everett Townsend, Neasham decided that "the story of Fort Davis comes within the national theme of 'Westward Expansion and the Extension of National Boundaries, 1830-1890;" one of the categories targeted in the 1935 mandate. Neasham, a veteran of many similar surveys for the regional office, believed that the "museum possibilities at Fort Davis are excellent, because of the military story which centers there." Yet because the state of Texas had already funded the Alpine-based "museum of the West Texas Historical and Scientific Society," Neasham concluded that "only minor exhibits at Fort Davis would seem to be appropriate." [79]

Neasham's reference to the work of the Texas state park commission in the Davis Mountains-Big Bend area unfortunately resurrected the old problem for Fort Davis boosters: jurisdiction over the preservation work needed at the post, and future management of visitor facilities. The regional historian, in language to be repeated by his successors from the 1950s onward, called the post "the best preserved historic United States military fort in the Southwest." He warned that "it is rapidly deteriorating," but believed that "much of its original appearance could be saved, if proper stabilization and repair measures are undertaken in the not too distant future." Neasham credited the "fair state of preservation" he found to "the fact that Fort Davis is part of an estate," as well as his discovery that "several families live in some of the old buildings, thus insuring a minimum of protection against vandalism." Like the GLO's H.L. Wilcox, Neasham considered the post as part of a larger network of attractions for visitors to west Texas, including the NPS's own Big Bend, the McDonald Observatory, Balmorhea state park, and Sul Ross State Teachers' College. [80]

Where Neasham disappointed the Mile High Club was in his suggestion that Fort Davis be managed by the state of Texas. The state park board had an option on the site, which would give the area "adequate protection." As with the working arrangement at Indian Lodge, Neasham called for a park service-operated CCC camp "to repair and stabilize the buildings." Then he wrote: "Classification and designation of this area as a national historic site, to be administered by the Texas State Parks Board in cooperation with the National Park Service, is recommended." This he believed "would bring [Fort Davis] to the attention of the nation as the outstanding historic military post, architecturally, in the Southwest." [81]

Coming as it did just weeks after the Texas legislature had rejected the entreaties of the Mile High Club, Fort Davis boosters had little to cheer in the fall of 1941. Their most forceful effort to date on behalf of park status left them disillusioned, a factor that only worsened with the news in December of the Japanese bombing of the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As early as May of that year, the club had tried to link a proposed park to the military preparedness strategies already underway nationwide. A.V. Chapin wrote to Thomas Love to see whether Army surveys of the roads in the Davis Mountains could somehow be the catalyst to complete the mountain parkway. When the Dallas state senator did not respond in the affirmative, Chapin expressed the first real sense of defeat evident in 20-plus years of promotion of Fort Davis. Writing to Judge Davidson, Chapin said: "We do not want you to possibly feel that we are letting you down after receiving the [James property] option through you." The Mile High Club, however, had to admit what Barry Scobee had kept well-hidden: "The people here who are most interested [in the park concept] are the little business men and general run of citizens of the community, and not particularly the well to do ranchers." Chapin then told Senator Love in September, after the weight of defeat had sunk in to the Mile High Club: "It is a hard struggle for a small group who have to spend most of their time making a living and still try to do something to benefit the community and the State in which we live, but we intend to do our best." [82]