El Fortin de San Jose

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about El Fortin de San Jose, out in Presidio County. Now, way out here in the big empty of West Texas, stories have a way of growing legs. Names shift, places drift, and before long somebody's marker is tellin' you one thing when the ground beneath your feet knows something different entirely.

That's exactly the situation we've got on our hands right here. About 1773, and that 'about' is doing some work, so hold onto it, the Spanish garrison over at Presidio del Norte, which today you'd find across the river as Ojinaga, Mexico, established a post in this vicinity. They called it El Fortin de San Jose.

A fort. And the reason was as practical as the desert is dry: protect the local farmers. That's it.

Plant your crops, don't lose everything. The Spanish military was here to see to it. Now, the post itself got abandoned about 1810, give or take.

But here's the thing about a name once it takes root in a place; it doesn't always leave just because the people who gave it do. The settlement held onto the name El Fortin de San Jose even after the garrison was gone. Then came 1848.

A man named Ben Leaton had acquired extensive property in the area, and the community gradually came to carry his name instead, Fort Leaton. Ben Leaton's fortress still stands. It is, in fact, all that remains of the old settlement.

But here's where the story earns its wrinkle. For years, earlier markers standing right at this very location had been saying something else entirely, claiming this was the site of the original Presidio del Norte, or the Spanish mission Apostal Santiago. Sounded authoritative.

Sounded official. Sounded wrong. The 1978 marker is here specifically to set the record straight, because Fort Leaton is neither of those things, and someone finally had the decency to say so out loud.

Out here in the Chihuahuan Desert, the land keeps score even when the markers don't. And sometimes, the most important thing a sign can do is tell you what a place is not.

What the marker says

About 1773, the Spanish garrison at Presidio del Norte, present Ojinaga, Mexico, established El Fortin de San Jose in this vicinity to protect local farmers. The settlement retained the name after the post was abandoned about 1810. After Ben Leaton had acquired extensive property in the area in 1848, the community came to be called Fort Leaton. Ben Leaton's fortress is all that remains of the old settlement. Fort Leaton is neither the site of the original Presidio del Norte nor the Spanish mission Apostal Santiago, as stated erroneously by earlier markers at this location. (1978)