Fort Phantom Hill began as the Post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, one of a line of forts established as new settlers and California Gold Rush travelers crossed Texas and conflict increased on the open plains. In 1851 General Persifor F. Smith directed that five companies be posted near the Clear Fork, and on November 14, 1851, Colonel John J. Abercrombie arrived with five companies of 5th Infantry soldiers, officers, wagons, drivers, and supplies to build the fort at Phantom Hill, patrol for Indians, and protect settlers and travelers. The site took its name from a ridge above the Clear Fork River that seemed to disappear as it was approached. Near the fort there were few problems with local tribes, including the Penateka and Yamparika Comanche, Kiowa, Lipan Apache, Wichita, and Kickapoo, who hunted buffalo nearby, visited out of curiosity, and also traded, while Delaware scouts Black Beaver and Jim Shaw served as interpreters and guides. On September 24, 1853, Major Henry H. Sibley took command when only one infantry company remained, reinforced by Company I of the Second Dragoons, and six months later Lieutenant Newton C. Givens briefly assumed command. On April 6, 1854, the post was abandoned and burned; the wooden buildings were destroyed, the stone structures remained, and Givens was court-martialed over the suspected fire, acquitted once, and after a second court-martial served a nine-month suspension. In 1858 the repaired ruins became Butterfield Overland Mail Company Way Station Number 54 on the route from St. Louis to San Francisco, providing a stone house, corrals, water, fresh mules, food, and rest for passengers on what was the longest commercial wagon trip in U.S. history. Stagecoaches carried mail and five to nine passengers, most trips took twenty-five days, fares averaged $200 one way, and the journey was tiring and dangerous because of Plains Indians, outlaws, and bad weather. The company moved its operations out of Texas in March 1861, but during the Civil War the fort became a regular campsite for Texas Ranger companies and the Texas Frontier Regiment under James Buckner "Buck" Barry as raids and lawlessness increased. After the war it served as a sub-post of Fort Griffin during the Red River Wars against the Comanche and Kiowa, and the ruins continued in regular use by Texas Rangers and U.S. Cavalry units until the end of the Indian Wars in 1872. In the buffalo-hunting years, the great southern herds drew Plains Indian hunters and commercial hunters, and by 1876 a small village had grown around the ruins as a buying and shipping point for hides and a supply place for hunters; by 1880 the population had reached about 500. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving sent one of the earliest cattle trails past the fort in 1866, the Western Trail also ran by it, and from 1866 until the late 1880s cowboys drove hundreds of thousands of cattle along the trails before the great drives gave way to shorter drives to new railroads. By the 1890s the town was fading as residents moved to Abilene, while the stone walls and chimneys of Fort Phantom Hill remained. A watercolor by J.B. Miller, later identified through comparison with documents and archeological evidence, provides a remarkably accurate view of the original fort from the east and dates to within a month or two of January 1853.