Fort Clark was established in June 1852 as a strategic installation in the U.S. Army's line of forts along the military road from San Antonio to El Paso. Located near natural springs and Las Moras Creek, it was considered a point of primary importance for defending frontier settlements and controlling the U.S.-Mexico border. Many infantry regiments and almost all cavalry regiments were at one time based there, along with companies of Texas Rangers and Confederate troops during the Civil War. The Army's Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts were also assigned there, and with Black troops of the 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry played a decisive role in the Indian campaigns of the 1870s. Prominent military leaders who served there included Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, Gen. Wesley Merritt, Gen. William R. Shafter, Gen. John L. Bullis, Gen. Zenas R. Bliss, Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, and Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Fort Clark remained a horse-cavalry post for the U.S. Army through World War II and was finally inactivated in 1946. Its property, including many native stone buildings constructed by civilian craftsmen in the 1870s, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.