Fort Phantom Hill was established on November 14, 1851, and within a year became a well-organized and thoroughly developed post, though conditions remained difficult and in November 1853 approval was given to abandon it. Shortly after the troops left, fire destroyed most of the log walls and thatch roofs of this large five-company Texas frontier post, but several stone buildings, stone chimneys, and stone foundations survived. In 1858 the property was reoccupied as a way station on the Southern Overland Mail route, and the Butterfield Stagecoach established a stop there. During the Civil War it was used again by the Confederacy’s Frontier Battalion, and in 1871 it became a sub-post of Fort Griffin near Albany, Texas, used by troops engaged in Indian campaigns. After 1875 a town grew up around the ruins, first serving as a buying and shipping point for buffalo hides and eventually reaching more than 500 residents; census records in 1880 showed more than 545 people there, along with a hotel and the usual features of West Texas towns. It also briefly served as the Jones County seat before that role moved to Anson, and by the 1890s Fort Phantom Hill was largely abandoned. In 1939, eighty-eight years after the fort was established, Lake Fort Phantom Hill was built south of the fort with a 6,600-foot dam, a capacity of 24 billion gallons of water, 4,200 acres of coverage, 29 miles of shoreline, and a maximum depth of 65 feet. Its watershed covered 395 miles, with Big Elm, Elm, and Cedar Creek as the main tributaries. In its early years, houses and cabins around the lake were used mostly on weekends and during summer months, but in the last 25 years more people became full-time residents to enjoy life by the water.