Fort Davis

Camping at another Texas State Park

Texas may be almost 96% privately owned (an anomoly for the US), but the % we’ve seen in state parks (not to mention the 1.7% in National Parks) is very nice, including this campground in Davis Mountains State Park. There was no cell service in camp, but nice big camping spaces and a CCC built Skyline Drive that we took to a couple of very nice lookout points (and cell service).

Our Campsite, from the 1st lookout on Skyline Drive
View West from 1st Lookout point…McDonald Observatory in distance
View out “Picture Window” in CCC Lookout Shelter, at the end of Skyline Drive

Davis Mountains State Park is right outside of Fort Davis, Texas, on the road to McDonald Observatory, and near our primary reason for stopping here…

Visit to 1 new National Park Site:

Fort Davis National Historic Site (#281) is one of the best surviving examples of an Indian War’s frontier military post in the Southwest. From 1854 to 1891, Fort Davis was strategically located to protect emigrants, mail coaches and freight wagons on the Trans-Pecos portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road and on the Chihuahua Trail. We spent a few hours at the Visitor Center/Museum on a very windy day learning the history of the fort. For example, Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper, the first African American to graduate from West Point, in 1877, served here. And from here he was dishonorably discharged for an erroneous charge in 1882. That was finally corrected in 1976, upon reexamination of the Court Martial records. We came back the next morning to explore the extensive grounds…both sites/ruins of the first fort, and the many more buildings from the second fort, with several restored and furnished buildings.

Fort Davis with enlisted quarters to the front and Officers Quarters closer to the mountsuins
Map of all the forts in the area
Fort Davis Hospital
Fort Davis Commading Officer Quarters

Unfortunately, due to that windy day, we did not drive the ~30 miles south to Marfa that afternoon, as 5 minutes out of town visibility dropped to inches. So, we turned around and spent the afternoon & evening holed up in our trailer, watching the Man with No Name Trilogy. (We did drive through Marfa on our way out of Fort Davis.)

University of Texas McDonald Observatory

After finishing our visit to Fort Davis NHS yesterday morning, we made it up to McDonald Observatory, an astronomical observatory located in the mountains outside Fort Davis. The facility is located on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, with additional facilities on Mount Fowlkes. We got on a 2-hour guided tour, for an up-close look at two of the research telescopes. We’ll have to come back in the 2030’s to see the new Magellan Telescope!

Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dome from outside the Harlan J. Smith Telescope building
Harlan J. Smith Telescope from inside…we got to see it and the dome move
Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dome, covered in tape to keep it cool…and the moon

Now enroute to El Paso…in another windstorm on I-10

First, we made a 10 minute stop in Marfa…

Visit to 1 new National Park Site:

Blackwell School National Historic Site (#282), only made a park in 2024, it has limited hours, so we could only walk around the outside. Here, written by prejudice rather than law, the story of the Blackwell School is one of “separate but equal” education for Mexican and Mexican American citizens of Marfa, Texas. Built in 1909, the school serves as a significant example of how racism and cultural disparity dominated education and social systems in the United States during this period of de facto segregation from 1889-1965.

For more pictures, see (in-work) Adventure Album: Across South Texas