Fort Lancaster began in 1855 as Camp Lancaster on the San Antonio–El Paso Road near the Pecos River, guarding a vulnerable stretch of frontier travel between Fort Clark and Fort Davis. It became a permanent post in 1856, with troops patrolling the road from a remote outpost that grew from rough jacales into stone and adobe quarters. The fort saw the Army’s camel experiment, Confederate occupation and abandonment during the Civil War, and postwar rebuilding by the Army, including service by the 9th Cavalry. Abandoned in 1873, its ruins and archaeological remains now preserve one of the clearest surviving traces of the hard military road across nineteenth-century Texas.