DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Mason County — and I'll give it to you straight. Created on January 22, 1858, and organized just a few months later on August 2, 1858, Mason County carries its name from the most important settlement in the region at the time: Fort Mason. Now that's a fort worth knowin' about.
Fort Mason was garrisoned intermittently from July 6, 1851, all the way to March 23, 1869 — which means soldiers were comin' and goin' through that place across nearly two decades of hard frontier years. The fort itself was named for Lieutenant G. T.
Mason of the United States 2nd Dragoons, a man who fell in Mexican War action on April 25, 1846, near Brownsville. He didn't live to see what would bear his name out here on the Texas frontier. Fort Mason wasn't standin' alone, either.
It was one link in a chain of posts — each one positioned a day's horseback ride apart from the next — stretching all the way from the Red River down to the Rio Grande. That line of forts was there for one purpose: protecting the frontier against the Apaches, the Comanches, and other tribes pushing back against the tide of settlement. Picture it — rider after rider, post after post, each garrison holdin' its stretch of that long, lonesome line.
A county, a fort, a lieutenant's name, and a chain of outposts strung across Texas like fence posts on the edge of the known world. That's Mason County.
What the marker says
Created January 22, 1858, and organized August 2, 1858, this county was named for its most important settlement, Fort Mason. Garrisoned intermittently from July 6, 1851, to March 23, 1869, Fort Mason was named for Lt. G. T. Mason of the United States 2nd Dragoons, killed in Mexican War action on April 25, 1846, near Brownsville. Fort Mason was one of a chain of posts situated a day's horseback ride apart, from Red River to the Rio Grande, for protecting frontier against Apaches, Comanches, other Indians. (1971)