DUANE
Duane's take
Now here's my take on what the official marker at Fort Clark has to say — and friend, this one earns every word. Let me paint you a picture. You're a soldier at Fort Clark, sometime in the 1870s, and your quarters are a tent.
Just a tent, pitched along Las Moras Creek near the spring. The wind off the Texas brush country doesn't care about your rank or your courage. It just blows.
So the Army, bless its methodical heart, eventually got around to building stone cavalry barracks during that 1870s building boom. Solid. Proud.
Limestone and permanence. Except permanence has a way of quietly falling apart when nobody's watching. By the late 1920s, those same proud barracks had deteriorated past the point of saving.
So the Army made a decision: raze three old barracks, build three new ones. But then — and here's where the story gets interesting — they built a fourth. This fourth barracks, the one standing right here, went up in 1931 and 1932.
And it rose on a piece of ground that had been sitting empty for forty years. Back in March of 1892, the first post commissary had burned to the ground on that very spot, and the land had just waited, patient as only Texas land can be, for something worthy to take its place. When the building was finally completed, it was something to behold.
Three open bays, each one thirty by sixty feet, for bunks and wall lockers. A mess hall. Troop offices.
Supply and arms rooms. A latrine. State of the art, top to bottom.
The building was so modern, so genuinely impressive, that it was singled out — specifically held up — as justification to keep Fort Clark as a permanent military post. This building made the argument, and the argument won. Structurally, she's built atop a raised concrete basement.
Loadbearing limestone walls, web wall construction. Cast stone windowsills. Steel lintels.
The main elevation divided into fifteen bays by square wooden columns, with a cross-braced railing stretching across that second-story porch. She's not just functional — she has bearing. Now, the soldiers who walked through her doors first were the men of F Troop, 5th US Cavalry.
In 1941 the 5th Cavalry left Fort Clark, and the barracks passed to the 112th Cavalry of the Texas National Guard. Then, in the fall of 1942, the Buffalo Soldiers arrived — the 9th Cavalry, African-American troops whose legacy in the American West runs long and deep and proud. And then, for the remainder of World War II, this building held something Fort Clark had never held before: one hundred and eighty-two African-American enlisted women, the Women's Army Corps Detachment of the 1855th Service Unit.
One hundred and eighty-two women who served their country in a time when their country was still working out whether to fully claim them. One building. Forty years of empty ground before it.
Tents before that. And through its doors walked cavalrymen, National Guardsmen, Buffalo Soldiers, and WAC women who had every reason not to serve and served anyway. Fort Clark's marker was recorded in 2009, but the story inside these limestone walls has been accumulating a whole lot longer than that.
What the marker says
NEW CAVALRY BARRACKS The earliest quarters for soldiers at Fort Clark were tents along Las Moras Creek near the spring. During the forts 1870s building boom, stone cavalry barracks were constructed, but by the late 1920s. They had become too deteriorated for continued use. Three two-story stone cavalry barracks were constructed in 1931-1932 two replace the three barracks that were razed. This new, fourth barracks was constructed on the site of the first post Commissary which had burned in March, 1892, leaving the site vacant for 40 years. When the building was completed, it contained state-of-the-art facilities, including three 30 by 60-foot open bays for bunks and wall lockers, a mess hall, troop offices, supply and arms rooms, and a latrine. The building was so modern and impressive that it was singled out in order to justify the retention of Fort Clark as a permanent military post. The first occupants of the barracks were the soldiers of “F” Troop, 5th US Cavalry. In 1941 the 5th Cavalry left the post and the barracks were used by the 112th Cavalry of the Texas National Guard. The Buffalo soldiers of the 9th Cavalry, African-American troops, moved into the barracks in fall, 1942. Lastly, for the remainder of World War II, the barracks are occupied by 182 African-American enlisted women of the Women's Army Corps Detachment of the 1855th Service Unit. The two-story rectangular plan barracks is built atop a raised concrete basement. Loadbearing walls are of limestone web wall construction, with cast stone windowsills and steel lintels. The main elevation is divided into 15 days by square wooden columns, with a cross braced railing across the second-story porch. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2009